DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA - Parliament of Australia · Metropolitan Business College, Sydney, Australia These colleges all provide integrated educational programs in the UK, USA, Australia,

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA

PARLIAMENT OF AUSTRALIA

House Committee on Communications, Transport and the Arts

Radio Industry Inquiry

APPENDIX 1

Selection Of Newspapers And Commercial Radio Stations Owned And Operated By DMGGroup In Non-Metropolitan Areas Around The World

Newspapers

The Bath ChronicleBristol Evening PostHerald ExpressGrimsby Evening TelegraphScunthorpe Evening TelegraphHull Daily MailLincolnshire EchoGloucestershire EchoEvening TelegraphEvening ExpressEvening PostThe CitizenLeicester MercuryThe SentinelSouth Wales Evening PostExpress & EchoWestern Daily PressEvening HeraldWestern Morning NewsPress and JournalCarmarthen JournalCornish GuardianEssex ChronicleThe Mid Devon GazetteWellington Weekly News CourierEast Grinstad CourierSeven Oaks ChronicleLlanelli Star

North Devon JournalRetford TimesThe CornishmanBrentwood GazetteThe West BritonAberdeen Herald & PostAshby & Coalville MailBelper ExpressBeverley AdvertiserBoston TargetCarmarthen HeraldCheltenham NewsDerby ExpressExeter LeaderGainsborough TargetGloucester NewsGrimsby TargetHaltemprice TargetHansfield & Ashfield ReporterHolderness AdvertiserHorncastle, Woodfall Spa and Conningsby TargetHull AdvertiserWest Hull (North) AdvertiserEast Hull AdvertiserEast Hull (South) AdvertiserWest Hull (South) AdvertiserIlkeston ExpressLeicester MailLoughborough MailLouth TargetMansfield Weekly Post & ReporterNeath & Port Talbot ShopperNewton Abbot WeekenderNorth Staffs AdvertiserNottingham RecorderPlymouth ExtraScunthorpe TargetSeven Oaks NIFSleaford TargetSouth Lincolnshire Target SeriesSpilsby & Skegness TargetSwansea Herald of WalesTewkesbury NewsTorbay WeekenderTunbridge Wells NIF

These regional and rural newspapers have a combined circulation of more than 4.05 millioncopies. This means that one in seven of the adult population reads one of our newspapersthroughout the whole of regional and rural United Kingdom. We submit that such penetrationcould not be achieved without a strong philosophy of knowing, understanding and reporting thoseissues of relevance to our local communities. This is in addition to 3.1 million copies of itsLondon metropolitan dailys and 2.5 million copies of its London Sunday newspaper.

Commercial Radio Stations

5SE, Mt Gambier96.1 Star FM, Mt Gambier3BO, Bendigo91.9 Star FM, Bendigo3MA FM, Mildura99.5 Star FM, Mildura2AY, AlburyB104.9 FM, Albury2CS, Coffs Harbour105.5 Hot FM, Coffs Harbour2RG, Griffith99.7 Star FM, Griffith2GZ, Orange105.9 Star FM, Orange2MC, Port Macquarie105.1 Star FM, Port Macquarie107.9 Star FM, Dubbo2WG, Wagga Wagga93.1 Star FM, Wagga Wagga2LF, Young93.9 Star FM, Young6VA, AlbanyHot FM, Albany6BY, BridgetownHot FM, Bridgetown6TZ, BunburyHot FM, Bunbury6SE, EsperanceHot FM, Esperance6KG, KalgoorlieHot FM, Kalgoorlie6WB, KatanningHot FM, Katanning6MD, MerredinHot FM, Merredin6NA, NarroginHot FM, Narrogin6AM, NorthamHot FM, Northam4CA, Cairns103.5 Hot FM, Cairns4GC, Charters TowersHot FM, Charters Towers4HI, EmeraldHot FM, Emerald4CC, GladstoneHot FM, Rockhampton4MK, Mackay

100.3 Hot FM, Mackay4AM, MareebaHot FM, Mareeba4LM, Mt. Isa102.5 Hot FM, Mt. Isa4ZR, RomaHot FM, Roma4TO, Townsville103.1 Hot FM, TownsvilleVibe FM, Regional East EnglandVibe FM, EssexVibe FM, KentVibe FM, SussexKfm, Tunbridge WellsBreeze FM, Crawley and ReigateFame 1521 AM, Crawley and ReigateDanubius Radio, Hungary2CR FM, BournemouthClassic Gold 828, BournemouthTen FM, ReadingClassic Gold 1431/1485, ReadingB97 Chiltern FM, BedfordClassic Gold 792/828, BedfordBeacon FM, WolverhamptonWABC Classic Gold, WolverhamptonBroadland 102, NorwichClassic Gold Amber, Norwich97.6 Chiltern FM, DunstableClassic Gold 792/828, DunstableGWR FM, BristolClassic Gold 1260, BristolGWR FM, SwindonWiltshire & Classic Gold 936/1161, SwindonGemini FM, ExeterWestward Radio, Exeter102.7 Hereward FM, PeterboroughClassic Gold 1332, PeterboroughFM 103 Horizon, Milton KeynesLantern FM, Barnstaple105.4 FM Leicester Sound, LeicesterMercia FM, CoventryClassic Gold 1359, CoventryNorthants 96, NorthhamptonClassic Gold 1557, NorthamptonOrchard FM, TauntonQ103 FM, CambridgeRAM FM, DerbyClassic Gold GEM, Derby102.4 Severn Sound FM, GloucesterClassic Gold 774, GloucesterSGR Colchester, ColchesterSGR-FM, Ipswich

Classic Gold Amber, Ipswich96 Trent FM, NottinghamClassic Gold GEM, NottinghamWyvern FM, WorcesterMelody FM, Bolzano (Italy)

All of these stations are in regional and rural markets in the United Kingdom, Europe andAustralia and all of them have a consistent record of very high ratings amongst target regional andrural audiences, which again could not be achieved without a strong philosophy of knowing,understanding and broadcasting those programs of relevance to our local communities.

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 2

Selection Of Colleges, Exhibitions and Shows Owned And Operated By DMG Group InNon-Metropolitan Areas Around The World

Colleges

Bellerbys College, Brighton & Hove, EnglandEmbassy CES, Brighton, EnglandEmbassy CES, Cambridge, EnglandBellerbys College, EnglandEmbassy CES, Folkestone, EnglandEmbassy CES, Hastings, EnglandBellerbys College, Wadhurst, EnglandEmbassy CES, London, EnglandBellerbsys College, London, EnglandEmbassy CES, Boston, USALaselle College, Boston, USAEmbassy CES, Fort Lauderdale, USAEmbassy CES, New York, USAEmbassy CES, San Diego, USAEmbassy CES, San Francisco, USAEmbassy CES, Brisbane, AustraliaMartin College, Brisbane, AustraliaEmbassy CES, Cairns, AustraliaMartin College, Cairns, AustraliaMartin College, Canberra, AustraliaEmbassy CES, Gold Coast, AustraliaMartin College, Gold Coast, AustraliaEmbassy CES, Melbourne, AustraliaTaylors College, Melbourne, AustraliaMartin College, Parramatta, AustraliaEmbassy CES, Perth, AustraliaMartin College, Perth, AustraliaTaylors College, Perth, Australia

Embassy CES, Sydney, AustraliaTaylors College, Sydney, AustraliaMartin College, Sydney, AustraliaMetropolitan Business College, Sydney, Australia

These colleges all provide integrated educational programs in the UK, USA, Australia, Irelandand Spain. There is a network of 21 regional and rural area offices across five continents. Theseoffices recruit students from regional and rural areas (and metropolitan areas) and provide themwith an opportunity to study at our colleges for their careers and development.

Exhibitions and Shows

DMG Group owns and operates hundreds of exhibitions and shows worldwide. They are toonumerous to list here. The following is just a selection of those which either are held in regionaland rural areas or attract a significant proportion of their exhibitors or audiences from regional orrural areas:

Frutas & Verduras Agricultural Commodities Show, ArgentinaWood Tech Agricultural Commodities Show, CanadaChemsource Agricultural Chemicals Show, EnglandAsia Pacific Building and Coatings Show, ThailandSurface Engineering Show, EnglandInterior Design Exhibition, AustraliaDesignex, AustraliaWorking with Wood, AustraliaHotels and Hospitality Fair, AustraliaFood Tech Exhibition, AustraliaPack Tech Exhibition, AustraliaEnvironmental Trade Show, CanadaLogistics & Transport Exhibition, AustraliaHandling and Storage Exhibition, AustraliaTimber and Working with Wood Show, AustraliaBuildex, AustraliaMaterials Handling Exhibition, AustraliaDaily Mail Ideal Home Show, EnglandWarwick Arts and Antiques Show, EnglandAnaheim Harvest Festival, USAPhoenix Harvest Festival, USAPleasanton Harvest Festival, USAPomona Harvest Festival, USATucson Harvest Festival, USAArizona Fall Home Show, USAAuckland Home World, New ZealandCalgary Home & Interior Design Show, CanadaCommonwealth Bank Home Show, AustraliaDeseret News Fall Home Improvement Show, USAFall New England Home Show, USAInland Fall New England Home Show, USAInland Valley Fall Home Show, USANorth Texas Fall Home Improvement Show, USAPeninsula Fall Home & Garden Show, USA

South Bay Fall Home & Garden Show, USABirmingham Ski & Snowboard Show, EnglandDaily Mail Ski and Snowboard Show, EnglandThe International Tourism & Travel Show, England

These exhibitions and shows are sometimes held in regional and rural areas and, in all cases, theyattract a significant proportion of their exhibitors or audiences from regional or rural areas.

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DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 3

Public Survey Results

AC Neilsen Radio Surveys 2000(AC Neilsen Pty Ltd)

Timeslot % of People in MetropolitanMarkets Who Listen to

Commercial Radio

% of People in Non-MetropolitanMarkets Who Listen to

Commercial Radio

6.00am-7.00am 41.9% 45.4%

7.00am-8.00am 61.3% 63.6%

8.00am-9.00am 62.8% 66.1%

9.00am-10.00am 50.8% 54.5%

10.00am-11.00am 46.9% 50.8%

11.00am-12.00 noon 44.5% 48.4%

12 noon-1.00pm 42.1% 45.5%

1.00pm-2.00pm 40.2% 41.9%

2.00pm-3.00pm 40.9% 42.1%

3.00pm-4.00pm 48.0% 49.5%

4.00pm-5.00pm 49.9% 49.3%

5.00pm-6.00pm 47.7% 44.0%

6.00pm-7.00pm 36.2% 30.2%

7.00pm-8.00pm 28.0% 23.9%

8.00pm-9.00pm 25.4% 22.7%

Timeslot % of People in MetropolitanMarkets Who Listen to

Commercial Radio

% of People in Non-MetropolitanMarkets Who Listen to

Commercial Radio

9.00pm-10.00pm 24.6% 22.7%

10.00pm-11.00pm 21.3% 18.5%

11.00pm-12.00 midnight 13.1% 10.8%

These independent survey results also reflect our own survey results. That is, audiences inregional and rural markets put even more emphasis than their counterparts in metropolitanmarkets on listening to commercial radio in the mornings. Regional and rural listenership isgreater than metropolitan listenership by significant margins during early and mid-morning. Thesituation is then relatively even through the middle of the day and the afternoon. It is around thattime that metropolitan listenership really starts to overtake regional and rural listenership. Then,as the evening and night draws on, metropolitan listenership is significantly greater than regionaland rural listenership. DMG Group’s emphasis on breakfast programs and programs in themorning timeslots, is supported by these results. AC Neilsen also found, in a survey of 36,910people, of which 26,157 people lived in regional or rural areas, that 76.6% of all people aged 10-17 listen to commercial radio as opposed to community radio or ABC/national radio, 59.5% of allpeople aged 55 and over listen to commercial radio as opposed to community radio orABC/national radio and all other age groups are above 70% and the average, for all age groups, is68.8%. Moreover, the average is even higher for women, as opposed to men, with 71.4% of allwomen listening to commercial radio as opposed to community radio or ABC/national radio.That figure for all men is 65.6%.

These results demonstrate that in a survey dominated by listeners in regional and rural areas (morethan 70% of the survey), the dominance of commercial radio over all other forms of radio isoverwhelming. The surveyed markets included more than half of the regional and rural marketsin which commercial stations are owned and operated by DMG Group. These results aretherefore an independent reflection of the success of our commercial stations.

AC Neilsen Radio Surveys #1 2000 and #1 1999(AC Neilsen Pty Ltd)(All people 10+)

Station Townsville Cairns Mackay Albury

DMG Adult Contemporary Station 25.4 18.9 18.1 10.9

DMG Hits Station 22.0 22.5 27.8 34.0

Next Commercial Station 18.1 16.2 19.3 22.7

Best National Station 11.1 7.4 4.5 7.1

Best Community Station 5.0 3.5 3.3 1.3

BDA Marketing Planning 2000(Roy Morgan Research)

The following are some of the nine media consumer types for Australians aged over 14 years:

• heavy television viewers, 11.6%, these people spend a lot of time watching commercialtelevision, but are light users of all other media; they are mainly retired or unemployedwith low incomes, in urban and especially rural locations;

• filling in time, 13.3%, these people are medium to heavy consumers of newspapers,commercial television and commercial radio, but rarely use the internet, cinema or ABCradio; they are mainly retired or unemployed people, on lower incomes (with someaffluent retired people), in urban and especially rural locations;

• self development, 9.1%, these people are heavy users of newspapers, the internet, ABCradio and cinema; they are mainly urban professionals on middle to high incomes andthey usually do not contain many people in rural locations;

• net focus, 15.4%, these people account for half of all internet use, but have a low interestin other media except cinema; they are mainly students, professional and skilled workerson middle to high incomes in urban areas and they usually do not contain many people inrural locations;

• high involvement, 2.0%, these people are the true media addicts, with a wide interest in allmedia types, especially the internet; they are young, urban and mostly male; they havehigh disposable incomes and include many students and they usually do not contain manypeople in rural locations.

This typology indicates that commercial radio continues to be more important to regional andrural listeners than in metropolitan areas and, accordingly, the ratings success of our stations, inregional and rural areas, must be an even better reflection of audience demands in those areas,than would be the ratings success of commercial radio stations in metropolitan areas (becausetheir audiences are at present more fragmented by internet and other forms of media). Thistypology also recognises that those who live in metropolitan areas are already ahead of those wholive in regional and rural areas, in terms of use of internet and other new and different means ofdelivery of media services. These observations lead to one inescapable conclusion. That is,commercial radio stations in regional and rural markets, particularly our commercial stations,through their very high ratings, obviously reflect the audience needs of very large sections of theirregional and rural communities and, as a result, the policy focus of governments should not andneed not be on the quality of services provided to those communities by commercial radio stations- because it is clear that that quality is very acceptable to those communities - but rather the policyfocus should be on increasing access of audiences in regional and rural markets to internet andother forms of delivery of media services (and skills training to enable people to utilise thataccess), in order to bring them closer to their metropolitan counterparts.

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 4

Summary Statistics for Commercial Stations Owned by DMG Group

1 DMG owns one radio station in some markets and two radio stations in other markets.The Inquiry is about the relationship between radio stations and their local communities.The aggregate relationship, rather than two separate relationships, is most relevant,therefore, in markets where two radio stations are owned by DMG. As a result, thissummary of statistics does not identify separate positions of separate radio stations in suchmarkets. Rather, it concentrates on the aggregate position.

2 The notation “N/A” means either “not available” or “not applicable”, where relevant. Itdoes not mean “zero”. In cases where the appropriate response is “zero” we have put “0”.In some cases information is “not available” because it is too old and records are nolonger kept or, alternatively, the records which are kept, in some cases, are not specificenough to enable some information to be extracted.

3 Information supplied in respect of all items is based on the records and other documentaryevidence held at the local radio stations or at other central offices of DMG.

4 DMG acquired most of its local radio stations in 1996 and 1997. Accordingly,information in relation to 2000 and 1998 in each case relates to a period of ownership byDMG. Information in relation to 1996, however, in some cases relates to a period ofownership before DMG. Moreover, even in cases where local radio stations wereacquired by DMG in 1996, the information supplied in relation to that year reflects thepolicies and operations of previous owners and relates to a period before any new policiesor operations were introduced by DMG.

5 A number of new local radio stations have commenced broadcasting during the periodsince 1996. That is the result of section 39 licences plus subsequent price based allocatedlicences issued by the ABA. As a result, therefore, in some markets it is difficult to makea direct comparison between years. However, given that we are more concerned with theaggregate position in a market and not the separate positions of separate radio stations,this is not a material issue.

6 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to local news, weather, current affairs, sport,community announcements and other items of local interest, does not include freecommunity service announcements in the nature of advertisements and does not includelive broadcasts of match day football (AFL, ARL or any other code), basketball or cricket.

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ALBURY AGGREGATE (2AY & STAR FM) ALBURY HUB

2000 1998 1996 2000

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 36 57 84 N/A

2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub orother studio.

209 210 240 N/A

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 127 126 96 N/A

4 Number of logged complaints received per annum in connectionwith the content or quality of programs.

1 N/A N/A N/A

5 Number of employees of local radio station. 19 29 31 37

6 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to local news, weather,current affairs, sport, community announcements and other itemsof local interest.

14 14 8 N/A

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for localbusinesses.

54 34 17 N/A

CAIRNS AGGREGATE (4CA & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 40 120 150

2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 192 120 150

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 144 216 186

4 Number of logged complaints received per annum in connection with the contentor quality of programs.

1 2 N/A

5 Number of employees of local radio station. 26 37 37

6 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to local news, weather, current affairs,sport, community announcements and other items of local interest.

8 17 22

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for local businesses. 28 28 35

MT. GAMBIER AGGREGATE (5SE & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 36 57.5 57.5

2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 102 112.5 117.5



0 0 N/A



25 25 25

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for local businesses. 32.5 36.5 36.5

MT. ISA AGGREGATE (4LM & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 1 N/A



7 8 8


BRIDGETOWN AGGREGATE (6BY & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996


2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 75.5 112 92

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 260.5 224 244


2 N/A N/A



14.5 14.5 13

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for local businesses. 31 31 15.4

BUNBURY AGGREGATE (6TZ & HOT FM) BUNBURY HUB

2000 1998 1996 2000



80 92 66 N/A



2 2 N/A N/A


6 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to local news, weather,current affairs, sport, community announcements and other items oflocal interest.

15.5 16.5 15 N/A


31 31 15.4 N/A

ALBANY AGGREGATE (6VA & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 0 N/A



15.5 16.5 15


ESPERANCE AGGREGATE (6SE & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996


2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 75.5 75.5 55.5

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 260.5 260.5 112.5


0 2 N/A



15.5 16.5 15


COFFS HARBOUR AGGREGATE (2CS & STARFM)

2000 1998 1996





2 3 N/A



8 13 8


GLADSTONE (4CC)

2000 1998 1996





0 1 2



6 7 10

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for local businesses. 25.2 32 32

DUBBO (STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 26 N/A N/A

2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 113 N/A N/A

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 55 N/A N/A


N/A N/A N/A

5 Number of employees of local radio station. 10 N/A N/A


12 N/A N/A

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for local businesses. 21 N/A N/A

GRIFFITH AGGREGATE (2RG & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 57.5 95.5 75.5




2 1 3



15 16 12.5


KALGOORLIE AGGREGATE (6KG & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 4 N/A



18.5 18.5 17


KATANNING AGGREGATE (6WB & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





1 N/A N/A



14 28 27


MACKAY AGGREGATE (4MK & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 1 N/A



8.5 12 9


MERREDIN AGGREGATE (6MD & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 1 N/A



14 28 27


NARROGIN AGGREGATE (6NA & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





2 3 N/A



28 28 27


NORTHAM AGGREGATE (6AM & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 1 N/A



14 28 27


ROMA (4ZR)

2000 1998 1996





0 2 4



8 9 9


PT. MACQUARIE AGGREGATE (2MC & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996





6 3 N/A



14.5 20.5 23.5


WAGGA WAGGA AGGREGATE (2WG & STARFM)

2000 1998 1996


2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 210.5 334.75 336

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 125.5 1.25 0


0 1 3



20 21 21


YOUNG AGGREGATE (2LF & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 0 0



10 16 16


BENDIGO AGGREGATE (3BO & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996





3 3 N/A



9 5.1 5.5


EMERALD AGGREGATE (4HI & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 28 N/A N/A

2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 150 N/A N/A

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 18 N/A N/A


0 1 2

5 Number of employees of local radio station. 10 N/A N/A


11 N/A N/A

7 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to advertising for local businesses. 28 N/A N/A

MILDURA AGGREGATE (3MA & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 2 1



48 47 47


MAREEBA (4AM & HOT FM)

2000 1998 1996





0 N/A N/A



8 7 3


TOWNSVILLE AGGREGATE (4TO & HOTFM)

TOWNSVILLEHUB

2000 1998 1996 2000



185 137 137 N/A



0 N/A N/A N/A


6 Hours of broadcasting per week devoted to local news, weather,current affairs, sport, community announcements and other itemsof local interest.

12 13 6 N/A


93 103 N/A N/A

ORANGE AGGREGATE (2GZ & STAR FM)

2000 1998 1996

1 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio. 57.5 127 107

2 Hours of live broadcasting per week from local studio or hub or other studio. 208 139.5 129.5

3 Hours of pre recorded broadcasting per week. 128 196.5 206.5


0 1 3



13 17.5 15.5


CHARTERS TOWERS AGGREGATE (4GC & HOTFM)

2000 1998 1996





0 1 0

5 Number of employees of local radio station. 3 5 N/A


8 7 3


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DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 5

Productivity Commission References of Interest

ProductivityCommission

Report

Our Summary and Discussion of Points Made by the ProductivityCommission on those Pages of the Productivity Commission Report

Pages 2 to 3 Regional consumers and broadcasters would be disadvantaged by policies thatdeepen the digital divide between country and city. They should not sufferfrom regulatory restrictions on the types or amounts of services they receive.The same applies in connection with new technologies generally and is notonly limited to digital technologies;

Page 3 Quotas for Australian content, etc, are designed for the old fashioned regulatedindustry and will not work in the digital age and will end up disadvantagingeverybody;

Page 5 Current broadcasting policy, with ownership restrictions, content requirements,etc, reflects a history of political, technical, industrial, economic and socialcompromise, and this legacy has created a policy framework that is inwardlooking, anti competitive and restrictive, and as boundaries between mediadissolve and the old concept of broadcasting becomes obsolete, this regulatoryframework is eroding and being circumvented, and it is unfair to continue toimpose restrictions on old media when new media is free to do as it likes;


Report


Pages 5 to 6 Existing broadcasting policy reflects a history of political, technical, industrial,economic and social compromises. This legacy of quid pro quos has created apolicy framework that is inward looking, anti-competitive and restrictive. Asboundaries between media dissolve and the old concept of broadcastingbecomes obsolete, this regulatory framework is eroding and beingcircumvented. Technological change has ramifications for many specific areasof media regulation. This includes content regulation. With the increasingpace of technological change in media and communications, the means forachieving the community’s policy objectives must also change. Contentregulation, including local content quotas, are now completely inappropriateways for achieving the community’s policy objectives;

Page 12 Services such as datacasting and broadband access to the internet could beparticularly valuable in regional areas where cable networks are not feasibleand the costs of accessing the internet using telephone lines are high.Government policy must be directed towards making internet access moreavailable and affordable in regional and rural areas. Commercial radio mustnot be the scapegoat because governments may have failed to make internetaccess more available and affordable;

Page 26 In a convergent environment, the national broadcasters may be required to playan even more significant role in promoting the social and cultural objectivesset for broadcasting. That is because content regulations and local contentquotas are just not appropriate ways to seek to achieve social and culturalobjectives. Those regulations and quotas would put commercial radio at asignificant disadvantage relative to other means of delivery of media services;

Pages 28 to 29 The quota system was designed for analogue television and will not be readilyadaptable to the digital, convergent environment. As convergence proceeds,quotas will be less and less effective. If Australia’s social and culturalobjectives are to be achieved in the digital era, new approaches should befound. That is because the quota approach is no longer appropriate oreffective. There needs to be a complete reassessment and study of appropriatepolicies for the pursuit of social and cultural objectives in the future convergedmedia environment. That reassessment and study must encompass all forms ofbroadcasting and media services, and it is inappropriate and unfair to considerit in the context of commercial radio stations in regional and rural areas, unlessand until it is considered at the same time in respect of all other forms ofbroadcasting and media services and in all markets;

Page 36 The ABA should conduct regular research on the demand for community radioprogramming, should also conduct evaluations of existing communitylicensees before renewal every five years to assess whether licensees aremeeting the objectives of their licences and the licence should be offered forreallocation if a licensee has not succeeded in meeting its objectives;


Report


Page 40 Any type of quota must be directed only at Australian programming (albeitunappropriate) and there is no suggestion that it should be any more local thanthat;

Page 48 Governments will not be able to maintain regulatory barriers aroundbroadcasting services as other means of providing these services spread, andattempting to do so would merely drive innovation away from regulatedservices to less regulated platforms such as cable, satellite and the internet;

Page 56 Open, competitive bidding for new licences means that it would be unfair tonow impose local content and other requirements which would impact unfairlyon the prices paid for the licences;

Page 63 Evidence proves that at breakfast time, when most people prefer news andinformation, radio is the most popular form of media and, as a result, what wedo at our stations with local breakfast announcers and morning news bulletins,etc, is to satisfy the demands of our audiences;

Page 67 People in rural areas tend not to turn to radio, particularly commercial radio,for news and current affairs, relative to other forms of media and relative tometropolitan areas;

Page 72 Media use tends to be greater in larger cities than in smaller cities, there is ahigher proportion of “low involvement” media users in regional areas, regionalareas also have a higher proportion of heavy television viewers (due tounemployment, filling in time, fewer entertainment choices, geographicisolation, etc) but these people do not listen so much to radio, a number ofrural people have problems with internet access and that is why they continueto listen to radio and watch television and, as internet access becomes easier inregional and rural areas, owners of commercial radio in those areas anticipate afurther reduction in audiences;

Page 94 Commercial radio broadcasters finance their operations through the sale ofadvertising time, they therefore have a commercial relationship withadvertisers, commercial services are a means of delivering audiences toadvertisers, broadcasters respond to consumer preferences indirectly throughthe preferences of advertisers, which in turn are related to measures ofaudience size and composition, being the research undertaken by radio owners,etc and, as a result, commercial broadcasters may broadcast programs thatlarge audiences marginally prefer rather than those that somewhat smalleraudiences strongly prefer, this phenomenon is recognised in our legislationand, instead of any attempt to change it, community licences have been issuedand it is those licences which are required to serve local and community needsand which therefore focus on programs that somewhat smaller audiencesstrongly prefer;


Report


Page 95 None of the models for financing broadcasting (national, commercial,community) is perfect. Each has different implications for efficiency andequity, but if properly managed and regulated, the different sections cancomplement each other to provide diversity in programming and opinion;

Page 100 Profits are much higher for metropolitan stations than for regional radiostations, and much higher for FM stations in metropolitan markets, with profitsin metropolitan markets being currently higher in real terms than at any othertime since 1987/88, with total industry profits now about double the profits inthose years;

Page 105 Convergence, the broadcasting industry and the computer industry overlappingto an exceptionally large extent, online radio, radio becomes converged withhybrid kinds of media, such as email, online newspapers and magazines,streamed video and audio, datacasting, etc;

Page 111 All forms of media compete in the market for information, entertainment andideas, but each offers a distinct service, but technological change may blursuch distinctions and, in a hypothetical fully converged media system, allmedia services would be in competition and owners of commercial radio inregional and rural areas must be equally placed with their metropolitanbrethren to be able to compete in the converged market;

Page 112 Convergence means different sorts of media platforms and the necessity to beable to deliver media services through internet and telecommunication lines, aswell as the radio frequency spectrum, etc;

Page 128 Advertising in radio is considerably smaller than in newspaper and intelevision and growth rates in advertising in radio have been well belowgrowth rates in newspapers, television and magazines, virtually over the entireperiod since 1970;

Page 129 Capital city and regional markets tend to display different characteristics,capital cities dominate the advertising revenue for both television and radio,growth in the advertising for television revenues in capital cities and regionalmarkets was quite similar, but for radio there have been significant differencesin the growth of advertising revenue between capital city and regionalbroadcasters, and between FM and AM broadcasters and it is clear thatadvertising revenue in capital cities grew more than three times as fast as inregional areas, advertising revenue for FM broadcasters grew over seven timesas fast as for AM broadcasters, for FM broadcasters, advertising revenue forregional stations grew around 1.5 times as fast as in capital cities and for AMbroadcasters advertising revenue grew for capital city stations, but declined forregional stations;


Report


Page 131 National advertising is much more profitable than non-national advertising, yettelevision dominates national advertising expenditure and newspapersdominate non-national advertising expenditure, with radio falling betweenboth of those forms and, of course, there is more demand for the less profitablenon-national advertising in regional and rural areas than in capital cities;

Page 259 to261

Digital radio, conversion to digital radio is not imminent, partly because thereis no clear new market application for the spectrum occupied by analogueservices (unlike television). Greater audio quality may not have greatconsumer appeal, as radio is used more as a casual medium, also the use ofdigital radio means significantly greater number of transmitters and obviouslythe infrastructure cost for the digital radio network in regional and ruralAustralia;

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 6

Selected Interview Quotes

EXTERNAL INTERVIEWS

LOCALISM

All the following quotes have been approved for reproduction in this submission.

Kevin Wales (Mayor of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales)

“Local radio is very important to rural communities. 2WG plays a vital role in the Waggacommunity. It is interested and involved in local events and issues. It works with the City ingetting a positive message out. I have a regular monthly talk show on 2WG which ensures localissues are known and discussed. I initially had reservations about the hub arrangement, but theyhave been unfounded and the community service is as good as ever.”

Shaun Nelson (MLA, Member for Tablelands, Legislative Assembly of Queensland)

“It is my belief that Northern Talking Point has given me the ability to address Tablelanders on apersonal level regardless of their linguistic capability. Many people would find it hard to read theconcepts that can be clearly understood when spoken to them. With TV reception in the remoteparts of my electorate limited to only two channels or none at all, I have found the access to localradio invaluable in my position as a community leader.”

Mick Veitch (Deputy Mayor of Young, New South Wales)

“From Young’s perspective, local management at 2LF has shown that you can combine a localapproach to broadcasting with a national format. Good examples of local programs are the localrugby football broadcasts and the daily funeral announcements.”

John Thinee (Principal, Jays Real Estate, Mt. Isa, Queensland)

“I am the Licensee of a fairly large local Real Estate Office with 20 staff and have resided inMount Isa for 34 years. For the past six years I have been President of the Mount Isa Chamber ofCommerce.

My occupation and my position in the Chamber of Commerce have necessitated ongoing businessdealings with these Radio Stations. In all aspects of their operations they are very professionaland maintain a strong focus on the Region covered by their broadcast area. I believe this wouldbe the view held by the majority of the Business Houses in this City.

The various branches of the media can have a significant beneficial or other impact on RegionalCommunities. Radio Stations 4LM and Hot FM have been extremely supportive and involve bothmanagement and staff in the promotion of community related events and issues.”

Tim Mulherin (MLA, Member for Mackay, Legislative Assembly of Queensland)

“Mackay is well-serviced by radio. Through the ABC, there are a number of stations providingnational broadcasts, and there are also radio stations such as Hot FM and Sea FM with a stronglocal presence. In relation to Hot FM and Sea FM, local support is generated by their sponsorshipof Mackay events and festivals, their assistance of locals from time to time by holding appeals forpeople in crisis, and through their employment of members of the Mackay community. Anexample of how radio stations can provide crucial support concerns the joint campaign of 4MKand the Mackay Daily Mercury, a local newspaper, to create local employment. This campaigndemonstrated that reducing Mackay unemployment was of concern to these media bodies, and,practically, resulted in the target of new positions created being doubled. Having stations with alocal component reflects community aspirations and supports it endeavours which, I think, is veryimportant.”

Peter Maguire (Mayor of Emerald, Queensland)

“In recent times [since introduction of the hubs], I have noticed that local content has been re-introduced at 4HI/Hot FM. There has been an increase in local news, national programs havebeen cut down and a rural program, “The Country Mile” has been re-introduced. This has had apositive impact on the town and the region. It is important, particularly in country areas, for aradio station to respond to community needs and to be part of the community.”

Barry Bishop (MLC, Member for North Western Province, Legislative Council of Victoria)

“My office utilises the local news service provided several times a week, owing to a goodrelationship with the journalist, and the fair and equitable air time I’m afforded in regard tocommunity or Parliamentary issues. The news service is an invaluable guide to what’s happeningnow, as opposed to three hours ago.

The station is often utilised for listener feedback on topical issues, which makes for a variedprogram, in addition to providing a good medium for the support of community services.”

Greg Muller (Chief Executive Officer, City of Mt. Gambier, South Australia)

“For some considerable time, 5SE has excelled in providing continuing quality radio broadcastingto our region. In addition, the Station’s commitment to the community is without parallel inAustralia. The level of community support and involvement by the Station is the obvious centrepiece of the Station’s very successful policy. Its achievements for the region have ensured thatthe region is served with quality radio broadcasting, excellent regional news service and

community access and an outstanding record of community service across all spectrums of theregion. The Station has always responded to community needs and is always available to provideassistance and expertise to the region and its people. We are proud of Radio 5SE and FM 96.1 forwhat it has achieved and will achieve for our region.”

Baden Waldron (Deputy Mayor, Roma Town Council, Queensland)

“On New Year’s Eve 2000, Roma celebrated with its biggest ever, and most successful townparty. The Y2K Party, instigated by Roma Town Council, and organised by a high profilecommunity committee; including community Radio 4ZR manager, Deb Beran, attracted morethan half of Roma’s population, of 6400 people.

4ZR played a key role in community awareness of this event, promoting at no cost to thecommunity, all of the pre event fundraising (which meant residents of Roma and district wereadmitted free of charge).

In the month leading up to New Year’s Eve, the station promoted the event constantly, building toalmost blanket coverage over the last ten days.

Once again Radio 4ZR fulfilled its community obligations, assisting strongly to bring the peopleof Roma together, on this historic occasion.

4ZR, since its foundation, has actively promoted major community events and it is great to see thetradition continuing into the 21st century.”

Helen Brayne (Mayor, Griffith City Council, New South Wales)

“Council has always found our local radio station, 2RG, to be very supportive of the community.

Their local news segment services not only Griffith but the wider Western Riverina with regularinformative news bulletins. They also provide community information segments for many localorganisations to allow them to keep the community informed, for example, Red Cross,Radiotherapy Appeal and sporting events.

Council itself has a regular half hour “Mayor on the Air” segment which is well received.

There appears to be no difference to the range of community and news programs offered since theintroduction of the hub. All features have been maintained and we are probably better off forimmediate urgent broadcasts with the hub operating from Albury.

I have received no complaints from the community of any lessening of service. Staff andmanagement are all very committed to providing excellent community radio.”

John Castrilli (Mayor of Bunbury, Western Australia)

"Every region has its own cultural characteristics. Therefore, due regard has to be given to localcontent. In my opinion, the balance of radio coverage is adequate because not only do thosepeople need local content, but also broader regional and national content. It's all aboutinformation; people need to know what's happening not only in their own locality, but also what'shappening outside of it. A spread of information has local, regional and national significance."

Eriks Celmins (Director, Third Wave Media Pty Ltd, Market Research Consultant toDMGRR)

“We undertook extensive audience surveys and research in Cairns, Mackay and Albury in late1998 and early 1999. The purpose of the surveys and research was to determine whether therewas any appetite amongst audiences for talk stations in competitive markets. We concluded thatthere was no such appetite. The results of our surveys and research can be summarised easily.First, in the age demographic of 35-54 years, the audience for mainly talkback programming wasvery limited. There was room for occasional topic segments, but these had to be balanced bymusic, to satisfy the majority interest, especially those listening while working. Maybe talkprogramming was seen as being too distracting at work. The conclusion was, that to build theimportant day time listening share and be commercially viable, DMG needed to move to musicbased programming, especially between 9.00am and 12.00 noon.”

INTERNAL INTERVIEWS

LOCALISM

Bryce Nielsen (Local General Manager, Townsville)

“The insertion of local raves [ie local news highlights and gossip bulletins] and other localinformation twice per hour is more than sufficient in Townsville. There have been no complaintsin that regard. The quality of programs and commercials has improved exponentially since theintroduction of better technology and more skilled employees. Most programs for the Townsvillestations come out of the local studio or the hub at Townsville.”

“This is nothing new. Townsville in 1994 took 12 hours of programming from 2UE in Sydneyand three local news bulletins were inserted during the day. Roma in 1997 took 14 hours ofprogramming per day from Gladstone. Hot FM throughout North Queensland took all of itsprogramming from Bunbury right up to 1998. There were local news bulletins inserted three orfour times per day. That was all. Up to 1998, Young took 14 hours of programming per day fromOrange. Technology did not enable even the insertion of local raves or other local information.Any news bulletins which were inserted came from Wagga. Now that’s all changed.”

Stuart Snell (Local General Manager, Charters Towers)

“In the early 1990s, Charters Towers took all of its programming from other places. Morningscame from Bunbury, afternoons came from Mt. Isa and evenings came from the networked Skyproduct. Local commercials were inserted from time to time. There was no local news, currentaffairs, etc. Programming from Bunbury was terribly inappropriate. For example, Bunburyannouncers would complain about their weather going cold, whereas there were heatwaves andtropical storms approaching Charter Towers! In the late 90s, from around the time DMG tookover, Charters Towers reverted to about 12 hours of local programming per day and the balancefrom the Sky product. This relates to the AM station. Right throughout this entire period, HotFM took all of its programming, all day, from Bunbury. Today our AM station comes directlyfrom Cairns which is extremely close and the technology associated with the hub system allowsus to insert a large number of local commercials and local news and current affairs items. Thisfunctionality was not available with earlier networking formats. It is also very important to notethat although our breakfast program and morning programs are produced in Townsville, they arespecifically produced for Charters Towers and are done live by announcers who are beameddirectly into Charters Towers. These are extremely local programs. The technology and otherfacilities are simply better in Townsville than in Charters Towers. That is why our local breakfastand morning programs are produced in Townsville. My team provides all of the local informationfor that program and we work hand in hand with the announcer on line. Hot FM takes itsprogramming from Townsville and this is much more relevant than the old programming fromBunbury. Again there is plenty of opportunity to insert local stuff.”

“Charters Towers is a very small town with little advertising revenue independently. It could notafford quality announcers and could only have ever afforded average announcers. Now we areable to obtain the best quality announcers, programming and commercials, taken throughTownsville and Cairns.”

Blair Sullivan (Hot FM Group Program Director, Townsville)

“I am the group programming director for all of our Hot FM stations. Before the introduction ofthe Townsville hub, most of our stations took a 24 hour feed from Bunbury. Those on the eastcoast of Queensland had about six to eight hours of locally produced program and the balance was

a feed from Bunbury or from Townsville/Mackay/Cairns. It is now greatly improved. Hot FMstations in central Queensland do four hours of their own local programming per day (althoughsome of it is produced at the hub in Townsville) and 12 hours per day is networked live fromTownsville (which includes at least four hours of live network programming). Local newsbulletins, commercials, etc, are regularly inserted into the programming. Only late night/earlymorning programming is automated in the old fashioned networking way. This is vastly betterthan the past. As for Hot FM stations on the east coast of Queensland, they are even better off and16 hours of their programming per day is either live from the local studio or live from the huband, in both of those cases, the programming is top quality and “local”.”

“The standard of programming since the introduction of the hub has improved across the board.In Western and central Queensland markets, in particular, the hub system has enabled theintroduction of localism which otherwise did not exist and just was not sustainable for acommercial operation. Listeners would be mighty disaffected if anything resulted in a change tothe new system.”

Rob Kidd (Local Announcer, Townsville)

“I am the announcer for five hours of local programming every afternoon from the Townsvillehub. My show goes live to our AM/Heritage stations in Queensland. Music is determined by ourresearch and listener surveys. Those surveys are undertaken by independent research consultantsthroughout all of our AM/Heritage markets. I then put in my own conversations, comments,humour and other commentaries. We insert two local raves per hour for each of our individualmarkets (eg Townsville, Cairns, Mackay, Gladstone, Mareeba, Mt Isa, Charters Towers, Emeraldand Roma). For these last few markets, it is sometimes only one local rave per hour. Material forthe local raves is received from our local station managers who email, fax or telephone theinformation to us at the hub, or is actually received from listeners who telephone a 1300 numberand give us the lowdown on what is happening locally. The local raves are then produced inTownsville and inserted into my show. It works really well.”

Sue Gilbert (Local General Manager, Gladstone)

“In the early 1990s, Gladstone fed virtually all of its programming into Emerald, Roma, Mareebaand Biloela. It also fed some of its programming to Rockhampton. The local stations in thosemarkets inserted one local spot per hour. Local advertising was dropped in. The new Townsvillehub has not changed much of that for Emerald, Roma and Mareeba, except that the technology ismuch better and, therefore, the quality of the programs is better, the quality of the announcers isbetter, the ability to insert local items is much easier and, therefore, there are many more localspots. Advertising has increased because of the better quality. Emerald, Roma and Mareeba alsohave some live programs which they did not have before. They are much better off.”

“Gladstone is in a good position. It has seven hours of locally produced live programming eachday and another nine or so hours which is live from the hub at Townsville. That liveprogramming is still incredibly local, because of the insertion of numerous local spots and localraves, the listeners’ hotline and the e-mailing and other delivery of local items on a continuousbasis from the local manager to the hub. It is now so easy to drop local news, weather, advertisingand other events into the hub programming. And it is also quicker, because the local spots can beproduced in Townsville and automatically inserted into the programming, rather than having to beproduced at the local station, then sent to a central position and then beamed back. Gladstoneonly has about seven hours of old fashioned networked programming, in an automated sense, perday, from 10.00 pm until 5.00 am.”

Merv Bunt (Local General Manager, Emerald)

“Emerald provided a 24 hour service in the late 80s and very early 90s. That is because the coalmining industry was absolutely booming. Population was on the increase and the economy wasstrong. Since then, with different mines either closing or slowing down, there has been a fall inthe population and a dive in the economy. Local advertising interest is much less in real andabsolute terms than it was when I first went to Emerald in the mid-80s. After the start of the 90sand definitely by the mid-90s, with the station becoming obviously unprofitable, we took all ofour feed from 2UE in Sydney. There was hardly anything local on the air. That improved a littlein the late 90s, when we had our own breakfast show for three hours each day and also threemorning local news slots. The introduction of the hub has been the best thing to happen for radioin Emerald since the 80s. We continue to produce our own breakfast program. We also produceone hour of local talk in the late morning and one hour of local country programming in the earlyafternoon. This local country programming is about to commence. We only take two hours ofmetropolitan networked programming (John Laws). Our other programming comes from theTownsville hub and a lot of it is live, with local news, local raves, local commercials, localweather etc. inserted on a regular basis.”

“It simply would not be possible for us to have more local content in Emerald. That is becausethere is a limit to the amount of advertising revenue we can extract from local advertisers. We arevirtually at that limit. We simply cannot afford another announcer and, therefore, we have noability to produce further programs on site at our local studio. In any event, the quality of whatwe get from Townsville is so good and is better than anything Emerald could get on its ownaccount and, with new technology, it is so “local”, that there is no need for anything else.”

“Emerald in the 1980s broadcast all of its own programs. Some programming was thennetworked from Gladstone shortly after the start of the 1990s. This changed the manner in whichthe local station dealt with local matters but it did not change the quality of broadcasting of thosematters. Local news and current affairs, etc, was inserted into the networked programmingcoming from Gladstone. It was always possible to “go local” and that happened in cases of severestorms and flooding, etc. It is not difficult to “go local”. All you do is flick a switch and starttalking from the local studio. Emerald took more and more programming from Gladstonethroughout the 1990s. The recent switch to the hub at Townsville therefore has not made anydifference at all in terms of the amount of programming which is not locally produced. However,the new technology at Townsville permits a superior form of networking which, at the same time,makes it even easier for local stations to insert local news or current affairs, etc. In the past itwould be necessary to call the hub at Gladstone and ask them to record a local message and thento send it to Emerald for broadcasting, whereas now, we can just call the hub at Townsville andtechnology allows them to record the message and send it directly from Townsville to ourlisteners, so there is no need for double handling back through Emerald. This has greatlyincreased the speed with which local messages can be put to air. It is an enormous improvement.”

“We have an edge over our competitors with the hub system. It enables us to put more time andeffort into quality programming and announcer talent. Locally based stations simply do not havethe resources to do that and the locally produced product is therefore nowhere near the samequality. Moreover, they cannot employ or retain quality announcers in the same way as us.”

John Inglis (Heritage Group Program Director, Townsville)

“Local communities are much more interested in quality than local production per se. There is aclear example. When I worked in Darwin we took a feed of the Martin Molloy program fromAustereo in Melbourne. This was every afternoon. It was a very expensive program. Peopleknew that the program was coming from Melbourne. We could easily have employed our own

announcer to do an afternoon program from our local studio. We tried that for a while. But no-one listened to it. They all wanted Martin Molloy because it was a show with great quality andwas produced in a professional way. We had no choice and we went with Martin Molloy.”

“Local raves and other local news and information is relayed instantaneously by email from ourlocal managers to the hub and is then broadcast from the hub during our very regular local spots.This is true local information. A cross section from today’s most recent local rave includesinformation regarding a forthcoming fete, a town market, the movies which are currently showingin town, the football club’s news and a traffic accident at a major intersection. In the past, localcontent from local announcers was very often merely no more than a form of advertising formates. That just doesn’t happen any more.”

Ken Gannaway (Regional General Manager (Northern Markets) Bunbury)

“Radio West is the name given to our AM stations. All those stations are extremely local. Thereis between five and seven hours of live local broadcasting per day from the local studios in placessuch as Kalgoorlie, Esperance, Albany and Bunbury. We respect the fact that different marketshave very different cultures. Some are part of the wheatbelt. Some are part of the goldfields.Some are part of the wine industry around the Margaret River. We make sure we focus on thedistinct interests in the different regions by having local breakfast shows, a couple of hours oflocal talkback and various local news and weather inserts each day. Local content and localismgenerally are business matters and not “airy fairy”. If we do not have enough local content, wewill lose our audience on the AM stations. On the other hand, if we have two much local contentand we focus on all of the hardships and crises in the area, people will get bored and turn off. Soit is important from a business point of view that we find the happy medium. The absence ofcomplaints about programming says that we have done pretty well in finding that happy medium.”

Stuart Endersby (Group Program Director (Western Markets), Bunbury)

“Our Hot FM stations focus much more on music for young people. Local news and information,and talk back is important, but not pivotal. If you want that stuff then you turn to our AM stationson Radio West. Hot FM stations devote up to a couple of hours per day, in aggregate, to localnews and weather, commentary by local announcers, taking calls from listeners, etc. Sometimes itis even less. But that is what our audience demands. We have seen in the past that if we givethem much more of that stuff, they turn off. They know that Radio West is there if they want it.”

Joan Peters (General Manager Sales (Western Markets), Bunbury)

“Busseltown used to receive a feed of most of its programming from Bunbury. It now does someof its own local programming and the introduction of better technology means that local news andcurrent affairs can be inserted much more easily. Even in Collie, where admittedly live localprogramming from the local studio is nothing compared to what it was 10 years ago, DMG hasmade an effort to get close to the community, by sometimes doing outside broadcasts from thelocal shopping centre, by doing local promotions on a regular basis, etc.”

“Sometimes it is necessary to reach a balance. Bridgetown previously had its own announcers forat least a few hours each day. It now has much less than that. That might appear to some to bereduced localism. But it doesn’t mean that at all. First, better technology means we are able toeasily insert local news and current affairs items. That is not just done randomly. It happens atregular and predetermined intervals in the networked programming. Secondly, the quality of theprogramming and of the reception is so much better. Centralising the broadcasting and satellitetechnology in Bunbury has meant that the quality of the reception throughout the Bridgetown areais infinitely better than it was 10 years ago. In addition, it means that our local person at

Bridgetown is able to focus almost exclusively on getting local news, current affairs, sport,weather and other items of local interest, and to continuously feed that stuff back to Bunbury viaemail. Bunbury then produces local segments and inserts them into the networked programmingregularly. In the past, it would never have been possible to allow a person to devote almost all oftheir time to obtaining and collating such information in Bridgetown.”

“As part of my sales responsibilities, I am always on the look out for the opening of newbusinesses, the opening of agricultural shows, the presentation of major awards, etc. We alwaystry to arrange a live feed from those events. It enables us to increase advertising revenue from thepeople involved. Everyone therefore benefits. I also take charge of obtaining community serviceannouncements. They are always put to air free of charge. We promote local quiz nights for thefootball club, trivia nights for the charities, fundraising events for the hospitals, etc. This is seenas a way to increase the goodwill of our stations.”

Steve Sutton (Local General Manager, Mt. Isa)

“The terms of reference for the Parliamentary Inquiry were tabled at the Council meeting. It wasdecided that there would be no formal response. That is because it was thought that there was noneed for any formal response. To be frank, no-one was quite sure why we were having theInquiry. All of the people in Mt. Isa go out of their way to let me know what a fantastic job theythink we are doing. Mt. Isa has more local content on its airwaves now than it has ever had in thepast. Local live breakfast announcers plus regular inserts of local news and current affairs,together with regular programming from Townsville, means that it is much more local and muchmore relevant than it ever was in the past. First, we have more content directly relevant to Mt. Isaand second, the stuff which does not come from Mt. Isa comes from Townsville rather thanBunbury. The quality of the reception is now so much better than ever before. DMG has allowedme to join the local Council and also to be on five or six other local community groupcommittees. What other business would allow its local manager to devote so much time to localcommittees. The people in Mt. Isa recognise that I devote such time to their causes and they arevery thankful to DMG. Local radio these days is very professional and the quality speaks foritself, and at the same time, we still have just as much, if not more, local news and current affairsand other relevant material. Our communities are grateful for this. No-one has ever suggested tome that we should go back to the old tin shed style of radio.”

Alan Mead (Chief Engineer (Western Markets), Bunbury)

“Western Australia has always had a very large amount of networking. It is because we are sobig. Most regional centres have been served by network programming for at least 20 years. It isnot a big deal over here. At least networking has allowed us to enjoy the benefits of much bettertechnology. Others who first must fight about whether or not they want networking, will fallbehind and will miss out on valuable time to be able to get the benefits of technology.”

Graeme Keller (Group Accountant (Western Markets), Bunbury)

“We must attempt to strike a balance. Centralisation and networking enables better technologyand reception, the production of more professional programs and commercials, the ability toafford the very best announcers, programmers, engineers etc. and, very importantly, the ability toproduce “big spend” or “long reach” programs which a small local station cannot ever produce(due to its scarce resources or its limited audience reach). As for this last point, we have aprogram called “WA Today” which sometimes entails an interview with the Premier or a FederalMinister and the taking of questions and other talk back conversation between listeners and thosepoliticians. Large networks can afford to run productions like that and politicians are prepared toparticipate because with one program we can offer them half of the population of the State! Small

local radio stations have no chance in that league. And our audiences appreciate that we candeliver such programs to them. The counter balance is that local residents cannot knock on thefront door of the local studio any time of the day and find an announcer and two or three otherpeople to talk to. They no longer have the ability to drop in and request their favourite song or toreport their missing pet. But I suppose the inability to request your favourite song is today just asmuch a product of sophisticated research, as it is the fact that there might not be the same physicalpresence at the studio. In other words, research dictates the music we play today. You cannot justring up and ask. That has a lot to do with research and virtually nothing to do with physicalpresence. On the other hand, your ability to obtain an immediate market wide broadcast aboutyour lost dog has admittedly almost disappeared. It is not an emergency and therefore we wouldnot interrupt networked programming to report it, although it could be easily inserted in a localrave. I suppose that is about the true cost.”

“Advertising revenue from local businesses has increased a lot since networking was introducedin a big way a few years ago. That is because they respect the quality of our product. Listenersdon’t complain and advertisers don’t complain.”

Collin Taylor (Local General Manager, Northam)

“Local presence is not the same as local content. At Northam we no longer have a breakfastannouncer at the studio. However, my team’s collection of local news and current affairs andother items of significance, and our relay of that information on a continuous basis by email toBunbury, means that local bulletins are inserted very regularly into the network programs.Moreover, those local bulletins are of much better quality than they were in the past. It actuallygives me time to have increased community contact, not the other way around.”

Antonell Caputo (Local General Manager, Kalgoorlie)

“Our AM station is ingrained in the culture of Kalgoorlie and it has always been that way. It isvery active in the community and does a lot of charity work. We won an award last year for thebest broadcasting station for community services. For example, we raised $40,000 at a recentRotary auction.”

“We do at least four hours of live local broadcasting each day and that includes “GoldfieldsToday”. People find that very relevant to them in Kalgoorlie. There are a lot of itinerant workersand other semi permanent workers in Kalgoorlie. Our station is therefore seen to be one of theonly constant threads through the community. We also do live crosses many times to hotels, workplaces etc. Although we get a lot of program networked from Bunbury, local residents do not seethat as unusual. So many services are brought in from outside, in Kalgoorlie, that this is seen asnatural. Television is just the same.”

“We still do about 30% of our own commercial and program production. We enjoy it. It meansthat some of our stuff has a very local feel when that is necessary. We have a great mix. That isbecause clearly the staff in Bunbury are of better quality than the staff we previously had inKalgoorlie and, therefore, for most of the other things which need to be done, Bunbury does itbetter. They have professionally trained accounts people, billing people, traffic controllers,advertisement bookers, etc. We therefore get the best of both worlds.”

Jenny Rodgers (Local General Manager, Albany)

“We do a lot of community service announcements. It is true that we only have live localbroadcasting for about three hours each day. It has taken time for the community to becomeaccustomed to that. We still have a lot of local bulletins, but they are fed into the networking.

My aim is to develop a high profile for the station within the community. I have good links withthe local chamber of commerce and similar organisations.”

Geoff Rowe (Local General Manager, Narrogin)

“Until a few years ago, our station was located several kilometres out of town. Locals thereforerarely dropped in to see us. But after a fire destroyed the station, it was relocated into town. Itwas then getting 10-15 visitors each day and that still continues. There is no suggestion byanyone that it is less local than it was a few years ago. Networking incorporates a lot of localinput and Bunbury is good at taking our local stories, writing them up and inserting them into thefeed.”

“There is definitely enough local content. From Monday to Friday, a live breakfast show isbroadcast out of Bunbury specifically for our market. It is highly relevant to our listeners and isjust as local, but of better quality, than it ever could be if we employed our own announcer in thetown to do it. We have a live regional show which includes handyman hints, a rural informationservice, a talk of the town section with town councillors, a regional roundup from different towns,a local sports update, etc. It is very relevant and very local. We have not had any complaints.We run many local announcements and we have a live Saturday morning program. We are alsojust about to start a new one hour show called “Rural Focus” which will provide ruralinformation, four day weather forecasts, information from the Farmers’ Federation, the AustralianWheat Board, livestock reports, local community information, etc. We have done a number offield days and these receive a great response from the local and from our clients. Our last fieldday was just three weeks ago.”

Garry Leddin (Regional General Manager (Southern Markets), Albany)

“The quality of the product offered by us in our markets is unquestioned. We have never had anyqueries about the relevance of our news, current affairs and other information to the localcommunity. Our product is regarded by all as being as local as necessary in a regional market.Advertisers have also said to us that we now have an even better quality product with more localcontent. They can assess that very well through the local sales they make.”

Craige McCulloch (General Manager Hub, Albury)

“Our FM station is almost entirely local. It is only automated between 12 midnight and 6.00am.The rest is local and, except for two hours, it is also live. Our AM station does take afternoon andevening programming from 2CH. But that was because the introduction of a new FM service inAlbury meant that the choice open to audiences became greater and a lot of them moved awayfrom our old AM style programming. We were also at a disadvantage because the new FMservice has a much stronger signal than our AM service and therefore picked up a widercatchment area. When we introduced 2CH programming we got a lot of the audience back. Theylove it. We produce and insert regular local news bulletins and other current affairs andcommunity services announcements. For most of the day those bulletins are broadcast every halfhour. Sometimes they are even more frequent.”

“There has been no significant change to the programming format in Albury since the introductionof the hub. Our significant investment is very real to the local population. They see it in bricksand mortar. There is no negative feedback at all. Albury recognises our very strong commitmentto them.”

“We sponsor as many things as we can in Albury and Wodonga if they are non profit. We givefree airtime for promotion of these organisations and activities. We send morning crews to fetes,

fairs and other shows. Our breakfast announcers will often walk the streets of Albury/Wodongaand speak live to the local population. At the moment we do that at least each week. We often dobroadcasts live from a community event or show.”

“Steve Bowen in the breakfast team often sets up a free bbq or a free soup kitchen in winter wherelocals, on their way to work, stop and grab a bowl of soup and talk live into the radio.”

Glen Holmes (Local General Manager, Mildura)

“Programming is more “live and local” now than it has ever been. This is due to the seamlessprogramming and the number of local windows open to individual stations each hour. The hubsare also very conscious of local requirements and they therefore excel in presenting local issues.This can be seen in the news bulletins. We now produce our own news and insert local segmentsafter the national segments for each bulletin. That is not how we did it before the hubs. Our newsis now more local than it has ever been. In addition, before the hubs, local news was onlyreported five times each day. We now report local news every half hour from 7.00am until6.00pm. This is an enormous advancement.”

“Both our stations are heavily involved in community activities. We recently sent crews out tothe “Great Vanilla Slice Triumph”. This is a local competition and we made live crosses to thatcompetition right throughout its duration. We went local for five hours one day when the TAFEheld its Open Day. We broadcast live directly from the campus for that period. We do that sort ofthing quite often.”

Graham McDonald (Local General Manager, Young)

“We continue to do six hours of live programming every Sunday when we entirely producelocally the broadcast of one of our local football matches. This is in addition to at least seven oreight hours of live local broadcasting every other day by 2LF. Our radio stations are the only true“local” media in Young. Newspapers come from Wagga and television stations come frommetropolitan and major regional markets. We have therefore gone to great lengths to retain theintegrity of our local bulletins and all other aspects of local information. Our locals regard us“fondly” because of this. I know this has not changed since the introduction of the hubs. Theonly comments we have received, since then, relate to the improvement in the quality of ourprograms. We often broadcast from or cross to local and community events. For example, wewill shortly go local for the Cherry Festival Breakfast and we will run the usual sausage sizzle andother festivities.”

Cath Mabbott (Local General Manager, Dubbo)

“We send significant amounts of information, local newspaper clippings, local sporting andcurrent affairs news, and so on, by email or fax to the hub. That happens many times each day.Albury has been excellent in turning that information around into a local bulletin and broadcastingthat local bulletin back to Dubbo on a very quick track. We have also just decided to do a 12 hourlive program every Saturday. This will cover talk, sports, callers’ questions, agricultural news,chat time, local identities, etc. We also intend to go live from local picnic days once theyrecommence in Dubbo.”

Chris Corbett (Local General Manager, Griffith)

“Before the hub, all our news bulletins were taken from Sky. That was a generic national bulletinwhich had a Sydney and national focus. Local headlines were inserted usually six times each day.They did not run for very long. They were made up of the best local stories our people could

muster up. We now have a much more professional approach. First, our major news bulletins areproduced in Albury and they therefore have a regional focus and not a Sydney or national focus.Secondly, because some of the hack work has been taken away from the local station, our peopleare now able to focus more closely on obtaining and conveying local items to the hub. The hubthen produces a quality local bulletin which is inserted into the programming many more timeseach day than we previously did. We continue to take Aussie Rules and NRL matches during thewinter and we insert our own local score updates throughout those programs. We continue to do alive broadcast every Anzac Day outside the local ceremony spot. We do the Christmas Pageantlive every year and we will continue to break out of hub programming to do these sorts of things.”

Dan Bradley (Program Director, Rockhampton)

“All of our stations are more local now than they have ever been. When I first joined DMG in1997, I would travel to regional markets and the product heard on our airwaves contained verylittle local information. Generally the announcers would announce the songs and would notextend much beyond that. Today, however, announcers are forced to fill the local windows eachhalf hour or hour with local information. This is in addition to the local bulletins which areproduced at the hub. In other words, our new approach has, in a sense, forced localism back on tothe air. Announcers in the past were able to take a soft option. They can’t do that any more,because they are given slots of time which they simply must fill.”

“It is incorrect to assume that just because a program is produced “locally”, in the sense of aphysical person broadcasting live from a studio in the town, that it will necessarily produce abetter product or a more local product than one which is produced remotely using localinformation. Our ratings and margins confirm that listeners have also noticed that our product isnow more local and is a better product, as our stations are now rating No. 1 in every market inwhich we broadcast. No further proof is required.”

“Radio stations must be relevant to their audience and, hence, fortnightly we conduct research todetermine the listening preferences of our stations’ audiences. We do this in every one of ourmarkets. If they want more local news, we give it to them. By the same token, if they want lesslocal stuff or if they show us a clear preference for a particular type of programming, we give thatto them as well. We program from audience preferences “upwards”. We do not program fromour own preconceived notions of what they want to hear and then impose it “downwards” onthem.”

“Sometimes they just don’t want local stuff. The Martin Molloy program is a clear example. Foryears we took a feed of that program each afternoon from Austereo in Melbourne. Localcommunities were aware that the program was produced in Melbourne and yet it consistentlyachieved very high ratings. When Martin Molloy ceased broadcasting, we replaced it in somemarkets with locally produced material and the ratings went down very fast. Another example isthe John Laws program.”

“Our stations now employ more journalists than they did before the hubs were brought online.Most stations which employed a local journalist have retained that journalist. This is veryimportant - some people don’t realise it. The Northern hub has gone on and employed anadditional three journalists and the Southern hub has employed an additional four journalists.These are all in addition to the local journalists which were employed by the local stations beforethe hub came on line. Each one of our news bulletins has a mixture of state, national andinternational news. However, that is no longer the emphasis. We also have significant local newsbulletins which are separate and are inserted each time, and they are just as emphasised as thestate, national and international news. So every time there is a news break, it includes one

combined bulletin which covers local, state, national and international news, as well as one extrapurely local bulletin. Local people want both. We therefore give them both.”

Dean Pickering (Group Program Director (Southern Markets) Albury)

“Albury and Coffs Harbour always produced their own night shows before the hubs came along.Albury still does that, although through the hubs, whereas it is not done any longer at CoffsHarbour. But I do not think that is a problem. People do not complain and the hubs enableprograms to sound more local than they could before when stations were simply taking feeds ofprograms from capital cities. There has been a little loss of a few local programs, such as nightshows in Coffs Harbour but, in the main, the quality of programs across the board has increasedsignificantly and, in those few cases where local shows are no longer produced, they have beenreplaced with better quality stuff which still has a lot of local relevance.”

“With the old feed style programming, there was no opportunity to discuss local issues, but theintroduction of the hub system has enabled this to occur (through the local windows each hour)and, in fact, it forces announcers to discuss local issues.”

“The introduction of the hub has not caused any reduction in each stations’ involvement with theirlocal community. This would have remained the same. There is no reason why it would have gotbetter or worse. There is no correlation between these things at all.”

Roger Dunn (Local General Manager, Bendigo)

“I have not received any listener complaints recently regarding the programming or the origins ofthe programming in Bendigo. Other complaints were minor, such as complaints in relation toreception or complaints from small advertisers and those complaints have since reduceddramatically.”

Phil O’Donnell (Local General Manager, Mt. Gambier)

“Our stations do nine or ten hours of their own programming each day during the week and wealso produce our own sports show for a few hours every Thursday night during winter.”

“I don’t think our community is really aware that we get quite a bit of programming from Albury.I recently brought down one of our very good announcers from Albury so he could attend a localfunction and do a bit of a gig for us for an hour or so. He was very well received and it was prettyobvious that most of the people there just thought that he was an announcer who worked in ourlocal studio at Mt. Gambier. They hear him every day and they have no idea that he isbroadcasting from a point so far away. He is a fantastic quality announcer and we make sure thatall of the local stuff is inserted, and so why would anyone know that he was not in Mt. Gambier?It just doesn’t matter. When we told people that he was from Albury, they just laughed and didn’tcare. In fact, I think they were pretty impressed that something like that could come from Alburyand they received it as seamlessly as they do.”

Yvonne Braid (Local General Manager, Wagga Wagga)

“We still do almost as much local broadcasting as we did before the hubs. Very little has changedin that regard on our AM station. Although a bit more has changed on the FM station, it is stillnot unreasonable.”

“2WG and Star FM have always been heavily involved in the local community. In fact I believethat they are more involved with the local community now than they have ever been. I aminvolved in many community committees, groups and associations. Many of our announcers are

similarly involved. Just a few examples of what we do include the raising of $18,000 in one weekin early October for Camp Quality (via a live radio auction every day), assistance with an appealto raise funds for a new radiotherapy unit, sponsoring the “largest bowl of rice” fundraiser,advertising the garden festival and all of these other activities free of charge, sponsoring the jazzfestival, sponsoring the city to lake fun run, conducting outside broadcasts from local festivals andsponsoring the Christmas spectacular. We break into hub programming many times every monthjust to do live local or community events which normally go for a number of hours.”

Yvonne Braid is recognised as an absolute leader in all things to do with the Wagga communityand in recognition of her contribution, she has had a Wagga freight train named after her.

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

EMERGENCY SERVICES


“It is always possible for a station to “go local” if an emergency arises. When a cyclone wentthrough Townsville around Xmas 1999, 4TO went local 24 hours per day for days. It was theonly form of communication to local residents. Our competitors lost power and were off the air.Television was similarly not available and newspapers were not distributed. 4TO proved thatwhen necessary, it can do it (and do it well).”


“New technology at the Townsville hub makes it much easier to “go local” whenever required.There was recently a cyclone in Cairns. 4CA becomes the central communication point in thosecircumstances. A disaster co-ordination centre was established at the city council and it thereuponused 4CA as the main communication device for residents. Direct telephone hookups wereestablished between the disaster coordination centre and 4CA. 4CA immediately focussed localprogramming on residents, hospitals, chemists, power authorities, supermarkets and othercommunity services. It broadcasted warnings, progress reports, opening times of shops andbusinesses, etc. We were completely local from our own studio for more than three days. It washard work but, at the same time, it was easy to actually do it. We just flick a switch and the hubdisappears. All of our staff were requested to come to work and, as often happens, many of themmoved their entire families into the radio station for the duration of the cyclone. That enabledthem to be of service around the clock.”

“In April this year we received a call at the local station from Police at 1.05 am. A young childwas lost. We called Townsville, a message was recorded and was then broadcast directly fromTownsville to all of our listeners in Cairns. The message was broadcast twice, almostimmediately and the child was found by 2.00 am.”

“Outside the 4CA switchboard hours, we have an arrangement with Black and White Taxis. Theirswitchboard answers any calls which go into 4CA. They then have set procedures to follow if anemergency call is received. They will immediately notify senior station executives. In addition,the Police, SES, fire brigade and other emergency services all have direct and home contactnumbers for senior executives. I have received three such calls in the past two years and haveacted immediately in each case. There has never been a complaint.”

“All stations which take Hot FM programming from the hub may interrupt programming at anytime to “go local”. Hot FM in Townsville went local 24 hours per day during the cyclone whichhit around Christmas 1999.”


“Emails are sent on a daily basis from Charters Towers to the Townsville hub for broadcasting inour breakfast program and for other local inserts. The system works very well. A listenercontacted the local station recently to say that her sister’s house had burnt down. We called thehub, and the message was recorded appealing for clothes, food and other assistance, and themessage was broadcast on the very next local rave. No problems at all. It is always possible forus to “go local” in cases of major disasters or emergencies. I would sit in the studio and be theannouncer if necessary.”

Rob Kidd (Local Announcer, Townsville)

“In my five hour afternoon program, I am always able to insert emergency type information intothe local raves. On 25 September, a Townsville local called the station to advise that there was asmall bushfire and that it was creating visibility problems for drivers etc. We recorded thatconversation and it was broadcast a few minutes later in the next local rave insert. These sorts ofthings happen every day. Of course, if there is a real disaster or emergency, the local stations canjust go local anyway.”

“A cyclone passed through Townsville at Christmas 1999. We switched off the networkprogramming and went local 24 hours per day for about three days. For weeks following that, weran numerous promotions and recordings of local people expressing their gratitude for ourexcellent coverage of the crisis. People really feel close to us when these situations arise. Wealso feel close to them.”


“If our local station gets a call from the Police or I get a call directly, I will either call in anannouncer, or I will do it myself, from the local studio, or will relay the information toTownsville, depending on how urgent the situation is and what is the most appropriate response.In many instances, Townsville could produce and broadcast a local liner just as quickly and moreprofessionally than I could do it in Gladstone. I get one or two calls like this each year andsometimes I deal with them myself and sometimes I deal with them through Townsville but, inevery case, they are dealt with instantaneously.”


“Our station has a great relationship with the Police. About three or four times each year, we willbreak into any hub or network programming to assist with local emergencies. In September 2000the Police telephoned to ask for assistance in locating a three year old girl who was missing. Wewere able to get an item on this to air within four minutes. I was able to easily override thenetwork programming. We do the same thing when there are dangerous roads, traffic incidents,etc.”


“The hub system enables more support to be given to local stations in times of emergency. Ifnecessary, resources can be moved from the hub to assist the local station. In the old days,announcers would broadcast around the clock during local emergencies and they would end upbeing more exhausted than most of the local residents. These days we can send in backupresources from the hub if necessary or we can at least give them periodical times off air when weproduce a summary of the day’s activities in relation to the emergency and we beam that from thehub.”

“We have a cyclone manual for the Northern region. It sets out in a lot of detail how our stationsmust deal with each stage of a cyclone. Listeners also have a 1300 number which enables them toget through to a hotline at the hub. That enables emergency information to be broadcastimmediately. Each station manager also the ability to “go local” and disconnect the hub or othernetwork service at any point. For less urgent emergencies or disasters, the hub can prepare anannouncement dealing with the matter and broadcast it through the local channel on one of thelocal raves or even on one of the local commercial spots if there is not enough time left. We canalways act as quickly as the situation requires.”

Stuart Endersby (Group Program Director (Western Markets), Bunbury)

“All of the emergency services organisations in Western Australia have one “hot line” contactnumber for our entire network. That number is answered 24 hours per day. Police, fire brigades,road authorities, etc, can call us at any time. We then assess the urgency of the situation inconjunction with the caller. If it is extremely urgent, we immediately call the hub and networkedbroadcasting, if it is going on at the time, is immediately pulled and the relevant stations go localstraight away. They will go local through a reserve announcer at Bunbury broadcasting into theaffected region, or by a local announcer in the local studio. In cases where it is decided that thematter is not so urgent, we prerecord a message at Bunbury and then drop it into the feed. Peoplein the West are usually very interested in emergencies and disasters in other parts of the State.Accordingly, we sometimes just drop the network feed from Bunbury altogether and replace itwith a broadcast relevant to the emergency. That broadcast for a short time will go into everymarket. No-one ever seems to mind.”

“We have a great record. Not so long ago there was a cyclone in North Queensland. TheTownsville hub was still not up and running. The hotline call from Queensland came straight tous and, within four minutes, we ran an emergency alert broadcast from Bunbury straight back intoall of the relevant markets in North Queensland. We do not get those calls any more because ofthe hub at Townsville, but it shows you what we can do. On another occasion, we arranged acoordinated search for a missing person through all of our markets in the West. And it only tookus six minutes to produce and run the emergency broadcasts. Our ability to respond to these sortsof things is just not an issue. We are as good as anywhere in the world. The hotline also meansthat any emergency services organisation and also any other interested listeners can acquaint uswith an emergency virtually instantaneously.”


“If there is an emergency, a message can be recorded in Bunbury and immediately transmitted viaan ISDN link to the local stations. If there is a more pressing need locally for a message to betransmitted on air, the local manager will arrange for an immediate message and will override thenetworking.”


“We have a good relationship with the local emergency people. Northam have a water authorityand a roads office, as well as other emergency organisations. We often book advertisements forthem relating to outlying areas. This is a community service.”


“The station is able to respond very well to emergency situations, particularly because we havethe capacity to go live to air at any point. For example, two years ago there was a bushfire.Within just a few minutes of finding out, our station went live on air for the whole day, givingregular updates. We also later initiated a radio auction to raise funds for the victims of thebushfire.”


“We hardly ever get emergency calls which require immediate action in Albury. We are not likeNorth Queensland or even like the West. However, the SES, Police and Fire Brigade have mydirect contact numbers and for other key staff, and it is always possible for us to “go local” at anypoint if the need should arise.”


“Emergencies in Mildura are not frequent. Occasionally we get a dust storm. We go local inthose circumstances if necessary. We recently received a call advising that a truck had rolled onthe local highway and that the area was dangerous as a result. I emailed that information throughto the hub and an immediate announcement was made on air. It took only a matter of minutes.”


“In summer months we often get told about bushfires. In the past, we announced them on air assoon as possible. That was usually within a few minutes. This is the first full year of operation ofthe hub and we have not yet had any bushfires to deal with. However, I have established theguidelines which will apply and am confident that as soon as we get notice of a bushfire in thesummer, we will be able to email that notice to Albury and have the local alert inserted into ourhub programming within 3-5 minutes. If it is ever necessary to go even quicker than that, we willjust pull the plug and go live. All of the emergency services people have 24 hour contact numbersfor the station and also for me and for key staff members and for the hub. Occasionally we areasked to broadcast urgent messages for itinerant fruit pickers (because often police and otherorganisations have no other way of contacting itinerant workers). We regard this as an importantservice. The structure we have in place for the hub for bushfires, etc, will also operate in exactlythe same way if we get a request to broadcast an urgent message for an itinerant worker.”


“There has been no change since the hub. Our ability to break into scheduled programming todayis no different than it was before the hub. Police and emergency services people have contactnumbers for all of us and also for the “duty mobile” which is on a roster system.”

“On 29 September this year a local contractor mistakenly severed some optic cable in the area.This resulted in the blackout of all mobile phone services, EFTPOS facilities and, importantly, the“000” number. That number became unavailable to our population for quite a long time. Withinfour minutes of being told, I arranged for the hub in Albury to announce that this situation hadarisen and we then kept everyone in touch with the situation constantly and sort of acted as the“emergency operator” until “000” was restored.”


“The hubs mean that an individual station’s ability to respond to an emergency is much easier.Even when stations took feed overnight from Sky, for example, those stations could break into theprogramming and go local. But it was messy and complicated to do that and was also messy andcomplicated to get back into the automated program. This is because we did not run Sky and wetherefore did not determine the processes to be followed. With the introduction of the hub,however, we have changed it so that stations have a choice, depending on the type of emergency,to go local themselves immediately, to go local at a particular point in time or to convey theinformation to the hub and request the hub to broadcast the message on their behalf either as soonas possible or in the next local window. There are four possibilities therefore available. The localmanager will finally determine which of the four possibilities he uses. We have the system set upso it is very easy for him to choose whichever he wants in conjunction with emergency servicespeople.”


“It is very easy for the local stations to break into hub programming and to go local.Programmers would prefer that the stations wait for a convenient time to do so, but they can do itin second if the need arises. Stations do not need to seek the approval of anyone before breakinginto hub programming.”


“It is very easy to break into hub programming. I suppose it might take a while for me to breakinto it if I am a long way away from the station when an emergency is conveyed to me. But if Ican get hold of someone who is closer to the station, then they can interrupt the programmingmore quickly. There will always be someone close to the station. The hubs themselves are ableto break into our programming at any stage, in a case of real emergency, so I could always justinstruct them to do it anyway.”


“It is very easy to break into hub programming and broadcast any information required in theevent of an emergency. I just did this on 29 September. A severe thunder warning was issuedand 2WG broke into hub programming and immediately broadcast the details of the storm. Thetreatment of emergencies is no different now than it was before. In the past, we would take feedsfrom 2UE or from Sky and sometimes it was necessary to break into that programming tobroadcast the details of an emergency. In fact it probably took just a little bit longer then than itdoes now, due to the technology we have. But there has really been just no change at all.”

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

EMPLOYMENT


“Regional markets in the past were often used as a training ground for junior announcers. That isnot possible as much these days with the introduction of the hubs. On the other hand, however,the introduction of the hubs does mean that some local announcers will have an opportunity tomove into the hubs if they are good. It gives them a midway progression between regionalmarkets and metropolitan markets.”


“The introduction of the hub system has had almost no effect on the employment of announcers inWestern and central markets, and only minimal effect in coastal markets. The hub system in factenables me to spend more time doing “air checks” of the quality of announcers’ programs andthereby for me to assist and train those announcers better.”


“Certainly we now employ less people at the local station in Gladstone. However, one of ourtechnicians moved to Townsville and one of our program directors is about to do the same. Wetherefore actually experienced no redundancies as a result of the introduction of the hub. Wesimply moved a couple of people into Townsville. They were happy about that, because it was aprogression for them.”


“Our employees are now multi-skilled. One of our salespersons does announcing in the earlyafternoon and I also do announcing when required.”


“We only employ local people. Announcers will sometimes move from market to market and, inparticular, from smaller markets into Bunbury. But we never recruit announcers from the East.That would be disastrous. They must understand the local culture of the West. Some of ourmarkets are very isolated and self contained. Kalgoorlie is a good example. On the other hand,some other markets are much more variable and the employees comprise a mix of long termpermanent residents and short term or semi-permanent residents.”


“It is always important to employ sales reps from the local town. It is better to have localsbecause our clients respond better to people who are part of the community. They like to see thesales reps spending their money in the town. I always keep that in mind and therefore go out ofmy way to employ local people as sales reps. It is even more important with sales reps than it iswith announcers or any other radio station employees. Sales reps are the people who take yourmoney and they are the ones who therefore need to be local and that is why it is our policy tomake sure that they are always local.”


“When networking was introduced, back before DMG’s time, in the West, it was clear that therewould be certain reductions in employee numbers at local stations. However, employees were

never sacked. They were simply not replaced when they resigned. Instead, when they resigned,the remaining employees picked up any increased work load or, more often than not, the workload had not increased anyway, because of the networking. This approach is why it actually tookmany years in the West for employee numbers to drop by any noticeable amount. In somemarkets clearly we now employ quite a few less people than we did 5 or 10 years ago. But thathas arisen through the policy of non-replacement, rather than any active retrenchments. This ofcourse is subject to the overriding principles that we still warn and, if necessary, retrench people ifon proper objective standards they are not performing. But if they are performing at appropriatelevels, they will be retained until they resign.”


“We had five announcers many years ago. We now only have two. However, we did not retrenchthe three who left. They left of their own accord over a period of years and, once they left, theywere not replaced.”

“Staff are always a problem in Kalgoorlie. There is very high turnover. We always give a lot ofopportunities to young people just out of radio school. They see Kalgoorlie as a starting point.But so many of them only stay here for about one year and then they move on. It is also very hardwith our sales staff. They are nearly always the wives of miners. Miners come and go and, whenthey go, we lose our sales staff. We probably have the highest turnover in regional radio. But thatis part and parcel of Kalgoorlie. At least it enables us to give fresh opportunities to young radioschool graduates more often that other radio stations can give those same opportunities.”

Jenny Rodgers (Local General Manager, Albury)

“Multiskilling is now essential. We must be “jacks of all trade”. People with sales skills mustalso have skills in administration, computers, client liaison and public relations. There is no roomany more for an employee to say “I don’t do that” or “I don’t do this”. You must be prepared todo anything and everything. This does not mean that we do not have specialists who are the verybest in their fields. But the specialists are at the hubs. That is where they are of the greatestvalue.”

Garry Leddin (Regional General Manager (Southern Markets), Albury)

“The Mayor of Bendigo was concerned about the redundancies which might occur upon theestablishment of the hub in Albury. Of course there were a small number of redundancies (but weemployed many more people in Albury). We spoke to the Mayor beforehand and we dealt withthe redundancies as sensitively as possible. We did not have any complaints from the Mayor orfrom anyone else about changes in the quality of our product or about local content. The onlycomments made were about the potential redundancies.”


“It is true that we were once a training ground for junior announcers and, with the introduction ofthe hub and therefore less announcing positions in Young, we do not have the same opportunity totrain young people in the skills of announcing. On the other side, however, the hub does providea very neat stepping stone and enormous opportunity for those announcers who are left and, ifthey are really good, they will be able to move to the hub and there they will receive the best radiotraining it is possible to receive in the world.”


“The hub system enables us to obtain and retain better announcers than we were previously ableto do. This is because the hubs are able to take their pick of the bunch from all of the regional andlocal markets when selecting announcers. In turn, announcers are keen to work at the hubs astheir listening audience is potentially over one million people, rather than audiences which areless than 100,000 in most of the individual regional markets. This means announcers who aretrying to make a big name for themselves are much more able to do so from the hubs. DMG isalso able to pay announcers much better at the hubs and it can therefore attract better announcerswith better remuneration packages.”

“The hub system has promoted a greater delineation of responsibilities amongst the variouspersonnel which are required to operate a radio station. For example, in the past a programdirector at a regional station would also have been required to double as a production assistant orannouncer and would have been part of the executive team and therefore required to attend salesmeetings and other administrative meetings. They were “run off their feet”. Since theintroduction of the hub, however, program directors have been able to focus exclusively on thatrole. They can spend more time doing air checks of announcers and assisting announcers toimprove their work. This leads to better training and better quality announcers. Similarly,journalists are able to focus just on collecting and conveying local news and information. It allworks much better and this is why the quality of our programs has visibly improved.”

“As hubs are able to attract better quality and more experienced announcers, this means that juniorannouncers are able to learn from these experienced announcers. Previously, junior announcersmight be sent to a regional market and left to their own devices with little coaching or mentoringto improve their skills. This does not happen now. For example, we have just employed a 17year old announcer who will do the breakfast show for one of the Western Queensland markets.He will do that show from the hub and will get direct training and mentoring from the experiencedannouncers who are there. The program directors will also be able to do frequent air checks of hiswork to assist him to improve his skills.”

“We employ at least one local breakfast announcer in all but the very smallest of our markets. Insome we employ two. In Rockhampton, we are going to call for applications for a secondbreakfast announcer as soon as we commence broadcasting next week. These will be localpeople.”


“It is true that the introduction of the hubs and networking in general means that there is no longerthe same training ground opportunities for young announcers and programmers. They must begood enough on day one to be lead announcers at the local stations or to be junior announcers orprogrammers at the hubs. The other side of the equation, however, is that listeners in regional andrural markets now get much better announcers broadcasting into their markets and the quality ofthe programs and of the announcers, both those who are still at the local studios and those who arenow at the hubs, is fantastic.”


“In Bendigo we probably employ 10-12 less people today than we did five years ago. That is areduction of around 25%. I know we have been hit just a little harder than some of the othermarkets. But it is important to realise that not all of our employee losses have been due toredundancies. Many people left of their own accord between 1998 and when the hub came online. We just did not replace them.”

MEL_CORP/0373400.01

COMPLAINTS


“There have been no complaints in relation to the quality of programming since the introductionof the hubs. Programming was of variable quality in Charters Towers up until the introduction ofthe hub, but now the quality of the programming has improved enormously and the service ismore professional and more local. Why would there be any complaints?”

“Before the introduction of the hub, advertisers often complained because of the poor quality ofadvertising we offered, the fact that the same announcer did all of the advertising and becausetechnical problems led to the station being off the air quite often. Since the introduction of thehub, advertisers have noticed the difference. They have said that the quality of advertising hasimproved and also the ability to insert advertising at appropriate times each hours is also muchbetter.”


“I have received no complaints as a result of the move to the Townsville hub. We have beenhubbing for many years in any event. The only comments I have received are positive in relationto the quality of the programming. We have a fantastic breakfast announcer and that clearly helpswith the local profile of the station. I doubt whether many of our listeners even know that a fairamount of our programming comes out of Townsville. If they did know, however, I doubtwhether they would care.”


“We get occasional complaints about bad reception in cases where severe inclement weatherinterferes with the satellite. This has been a problem for many years. It is not just because we geta satellite feed from Bunbury. It would have been the same in the old days. We never getcomplaints about our local content or our reduced staff numbers or our physical local presence.We cover those things very well.”


“We receive very few complaints. On average it would be no more than one or two per year.These complaints are usually about the quality of the signal, and that cannot be helped in some ofthe remote parts of the licence area. I have never had a complaint about content.”


“I have received no negative feedback at all in Mildura. To the contrary, there has been a lot ofpositive comment from advertisers. They say that the technology and talent now being used isproducing a quality of advertising that was not produced in the past in any regional centres. In myview this is technology and talent which I simply would never have been able to afford inMildura. But we can afford it for the entire network through the hubs.”


“I have never received any complaints regarding the quality of programs. I did receive a handfulof complaints about reception and technological issues when the hub first came on line in Albury.However, we have fixed those problems and have not received any such complaints for manymonths. The technical issues have now been completely sorted out.”

Cath Mabbott (Local General Manager, Dubbo)

“Occasionally people do ask why our format is so similar to the format in Orange. This tends tobe a query out of curiosity and not a complaint. When we explain that some of the programmingis networked, that does not spark any negative response. But the overwhelming majority of thecalls we get are from people who tell us that they love our music or love our announcers.Advertisers have also said that the sound and scripting of our commercials is now much betterthan it was in the past and it much better than our competitors.”


“I have received no complaints from listeners and there has been no negative comment in the localpress in Griffith. The hub in Albury is just not an issue for Griffith people. The only negativecomment has been in Wagga newspapers which are distributed in Griffith. Wagga seems to havebecome totally obsessed about this issue. Nobody else seems to care very much. The quality ofprogramming is fantastic and that is all anybody else cares about. Even advertisers commentpositively on the quality of the commercials and they note the greater variety of talent which isnow available.”

Ashley Myatt (Local General Manager, Coffs Harbour and Pt. Macquarie)

“There has been very little negative feedback in Coffs Harbour since the introduction of the hub.Moreover, the quality of programming and localism generally has not been attacked at all. On theother hand, there have been a few complaints about format choice in Pt. Macquarie. These fewcomplaints do not have anything to do with the quality of our programs. Rather, they seem to bebecause the population in Pt. Macquarie may be a little older than the population which is nowtargeted by 2MC. In particular, the music we now play, from the hub, seems to be aimed at ayounger audience. This also has an impact on the relevance of news and current affairs. That is,older audiences prefer a lot of talkback radio and they prefer news and current affairs in aparticular way. These complaints have suggested that 2MC may not be pitching right at the levelwhich is required. Our surveys and research will pick this up next time if it is really true. If ouraudience share suffers as a result of wrong targeting then it will be necessary for us to change. Ifour audience share does not suffer, on the other hand, then we know that we have properlytargeted the majority. In any event, these few complaints are a matter of programming format andhave nothing to with hubbing.”


“Complaints from advertisers were not unusual in the first little while after the hubs wereintroduced. But that has now reduced dramatically and I think most of the complaints werebecause the advertisers, being local Bendigo people, were annoyed and disappointed that Alburywas chosen as the site for the hub instead of Bendigo. Some of the advertisers also complainedbecause they thought employment at our radio station would fall significantly and I suppose thatwould have an impact on the economy and therefore on their businesses. But those complaintsvery quickly fell away and employment numbers did not drop by so much anyway.”

“I think complaints from advertisers were really about the fact that initially they thought wewould lose something in Bendigo because there would be less physical bodies sitting in theBendigo studio. However, I think they have now worked out that that does not have much to dowith how “local” we are. That is probably why they do not complain any more.”

Phil O’Donnell (Local General Manager, Mt. Gambier)

“I have not received any complaints at all. I have actually received lots of positive comments.One listener telephoned only recently to say that she was very impressed with the announcer whowas doing a particular show, which was from the hub and she said she thought he was “too goodfor Mt. Gambier” and belonged in the city! Of course, I disagree with the last comment, but itdoes give you an idea of the fact that we now have the ability to broadcast quality programs thatwe just could never do before.”


“We have suffered from a widespread campaign which has been incorrect on many occasions andis simply wrong and vicious. There were adverse comments made by the local newspaper. It iswidely circulated and read. Some of those comments were simply incorrect. For example, at onestage, a journalist in that paper said that 2WG and Star FM were moving to Albury and it wasimplied that there would be no local presence in Wagga at all and that there would be no localinformation on our station. That was absurd. It really stirred up a lot of discontent. Then somepeople in Wagga were particularly put out simply because Albury has traditionally been a “rivaltown”. And it was not just that Wagga had lost the hub opportunity, but that it had lost it toAlbury. Wagga has lost a number of other industries to Albury. It is a raw nerve. On our part itwas probably regrettable, in hindsight, that we relocated the studio premises from the main streetin Wagga, where it had been for 50 years, to the lakeside. This has left a building in townappearing to be empty and that, together with adverse press, has allowed our detractors to argueand create the impression that we have left Wagga altogether and that we broadcast 24 hours perday from Albury. This is really quite dishonest. Our detractors also keep pushing the line thatour stations are now owned by “some London company”. For many years our stations wereowned by a local Wagga family. There was discontent when ultimately it was sold to a foreigner.These are emotional issues. The quality of our service is so high that I am sure these emotionalissues would recede, except that our detractors keep going out of their way to publicise them andto play them up. The final complaint relates to the banks. A number of the big banks have closedbranches in Wagga and they have left many buildings empty. This has caused significant joblosses in Wagga. We now pay some of our bills with cheques which come to us from Sydney.Sometimes we have no choice because banking facilities in Wagga are not what they were before.Sometimes of course it is just company policy that certain cheques come from Sydney, but someof our locals have noticed that the cheques come from Sydney and they have said to me that weare just like the big banks. They have painted us with the same brush. That is unfair because wehave not left Wagga and we continue to provide our services and in fact they are even betterquality than before. We have not done anything to employment like the extent it was done by thebanks.”

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OTHER

Carol Bermingham (Local Sales Manager, Townsville)

“The introduction of better technology through the hub system has led to a marked improvementin the quality of advertising we are able to produce. Advertisers have all commented positively.”


“Technology is now much better. The technical aspects of producing advertisements and thesound and feel of them is much more professional. The quality is very good. Townsville hasexcellent quality people. The biggest factor in successfully producing a program or advertisementis the people. Local information can easily be inserted now. It is the quality of the producers andannouncers which makes the real difference. It doesn’t matter where the program is actuallyproduced, so long as the quality is good and the local information is dropped in. Gladstoneprogramming is of much better quality and much more local today than it ever was in the past.The hub system also enables us to keep top quality people, whereas small local stations cannotcompete for top people and cannot retain them.”

“I am very proud of the fact that more people at Biloela listen to our Gladstone station than listento the local stations in Biloela. That must indicate that the quality of the service is very good. Tohave programs actually made by people in Biloela does not seem to be a motivating factor for thepeople of Biloela to listen to their radio station.”


“It is important to be actively involved with the community. I am on good terms with the localmayor and am involved with various local committees and community events. The station istherefore seen to be one of the community’s involved leaders. That is very important. Wetherefore often do our live broadcasting from local sites, schools, sports days, etc. We conducttwo fundraising events each year, one on Good Friday and one for the old persons home inEmerald. We do that charity programming all day, on those days and we just cut off the hub andnetworked programming altogether.”


“Changes in radio have been for the better. The hub system allows for and leads to a considerableimprovement in quality. It also preserves and, in some cases, even enhances, local content. Insome remote markets that is because it is now easier, with new technology to collect, convey,produce and broadcast local items. Communication from the local town to the hub and broadcastfrom the hub back to the local town is instantaneous. In other cases, the hub ensures local contentis not lost (because there is a slot where local content will go). At one of our stations a few yearsago, there was virtually no local content because employees were young and attempted to be “hipand cool”. They thought local material and current affairs was “old hat” and just didn’t bother.Programming from Townsville now makes sure that there is at a certain amount of local content.We can always have more local content, but not less local content, because of the way the hubprogramming and time slots work.”

“The quality of programming now is significantly between than before the hub. Quality dependson the ability of our announcers, the type of music which is programmed and the quality of our

commercials. The hub system enables resources to be devoted to research and surveys, announcertraining and quality control, production of commercials in a professional setting and other similaradvances. This was never possible when everything came from the local studio, music waschosen just according to the personal preferences of the local manager or announcer, commercialswere made by the local announcers without the assistance of proper equipment and announcerswere too busy doing everything and had no time for training or to improve their announcingskills.”


“Networking has enabled us to take a much more professional approach to advertising. Thequality of our commercials is now first rate. The only complaints we have had are from verysmall advertisers who previously were given much more than they ever paid for. For example, inone market we had an announcer who had a couple of small local businessmen mates. He wouldcross to their shops or factories and give them about an eight minute direct feed to promotethemselves and to say whatever they liked. Yet they would only pay for a standard 30 secondadvertisement. And even then, we were forced to chase them for months before being paid. Wenow say that if you pay for 30 seconds, you only get 30 seconds. Why should other advertiserssubsidise that sort of behaviour. We have cleaned it up considerably. It’s one thing to say thatadvertising time should be available to local businessmen. We agree and we make sure that it isalways available to them. We have spare advertising time on all of our stations. If they wouldlike to pay for that time, they can take it. But it is absurd to suggest that we must give it away, yetsome of the old fashioned local businesses want just that.”


“We do not just seek radio advertising from potential advertisers. Rather, we act as consultants tolocal businesses in advising them on the most appropriate way to promote and advertise theirproducts and services. In that way a real service is provided to local businesses. Often weencourage newsprint or telephone advertising in conjunction with radio advertising. Sometimeswe even recommend that radio advertising be deferred until certain parameters are achieved. Wetry to be complete advertising consultants. In the long term our local businesses benefit from thatapproach and our revenue dollars, in the long term, will therefore be greater. We develop arelationship with local businesses and are often consulted by them for general advice andassistance, even in cases where radio advertising is not the major focus of their approach to us.”

“DMG is just so professional. The stations were owned by others in the early 90s when I firststarted in the West. All the owners were interested in was immediate dollars. They had no cashflow. Sales reps were encouraged to offer massive discounts on the last day of the month if theycould get cash upfront for advertising. This would enable our salaries to be paid to us the nextday. DMG came in and said that was not the way to run a business. We now focus on long termrelationships and we always know that the money will be there for our salaries regardless of salesperformance in a particular month. We have much more security than we had in the early 90s.”

“We should not fool ourselves. I come from Bridgetown and see myself as a Bridgetown person.We had a local radio station in the mid 80s which had quite a few hours of broadcasting per daylive via local announcers. But then the economy fell right out of the bottom of Bridgetown. Overa period of more than five years, banks closed and left, supermarket chains closed and left, bigsections of the population, particularly youth, went to larger cities and towns to seek employment,etc. A local radio station just would not have continued to be viable. Bridgetown was not bigenough. If it were not for the benefits of networking, it is my opinion that we would have lost the

radio station altogether. No-one would have been able to make it work. Networking has savedlocal radio stations for the local communities in many small towns. Otherwise, they would havedisappeared altogether, or would have been taken over by very amateur operations with no ideawhat to do.”


“There have been significant changes in technology over the past two decades. Most of this hasbeen on the computer and satellite side. We can now arrange programming and networking fromcomputer terminals and we can get instantaneous communication from our stations and from otherlocations via email. The old fashioned mechanical side of the business has declined very muchand will almost go out of existence soon. These are things such as the use of turntables,physically loading tracks, hooking up links, etc. Many more people were needed to do that sort ofthing than we now need to run the computers. But the people we now need to run the computersmust be skilled. In the past the level of skill required was much less. We cannot go backwards.More people must become more skilled if they want this sort of work.”

“Digital radio in country areas is most unlikely in the near future. That is mainly because digitaltransmissions are very short range. This means it is prohibitive from a cost perspective to put inplace the necessary infrastructure. It would be necessary to introduce a large number oftransmission sites to be able to get the same coverage that we do today. It might be possible invery small markets. But our markets in the West are some of the largest markets in the world anddigital is just not appropriate at the moment. That is probably why digital radio has beenintroduced in Europe and parts of Canada, but not in the US where most of the markets are bigger.The US has explored the possibility of putting a digital signal onto existing FM signals. Thatmight work from a technical point of view in the West (although I have not thought about theplanning and other implications). Existing satellite and ISDN technology will continue to be usedin the West, in my opinion, for a long, long time.”

Graeme Keller (Group Accountant (Western Markets), Bunbury)

“It is important to look at economic and financial trends in different locations. Every market doesnot move in the same direction. We have been able to get more revenue out of some markets overthe past few years, but less revenue out of other markets. I can give you examples. Apart fromnetworking, we just cannot afford to continue with the same employee numbers in a market whererevenues have fallen by 30% over 6 years. On the other hand, we can take a different approach incoastal markets where population and economic activity seems to power ahead and, as a result,revenues continue to grow. At least networking means that a quality of service can be retained insome smaller markets where, without networking, the stations would either disappear or be left torun down so that the quality of programming would be disastrous. We treat our listeners betterthan that.”


“When networking was first introduced, there were a small number of people who were unhappyand tried to engender some local dissent. But we worked out that the people who were unhappywere mainly small local businesses who worked out that they would no longer receive free orheavily subsidised airtime. But we even found that most of those local businesses came back.Our advertising hit such a good quality that they could not afford not to come back.”


“Advertisers and audiences constantly feed back to us that the quality of our product from bothstations is much better since the introduction of the hub, in terms of music and the quality andsound of programs and of advertising being produced.”


“In regional areas it simply is not possible for stations to obtain and retain presenters with theprofile and experience of those in the big cities. For example, we could never obtain or affordJohn Laws. Without taking a feed of programs like that from the capital cities or from hubs, smallregional stations would never be able to broadcast those quality shows to their audiences.Audiences would therefore receive a very second rate product. We are now able to overcome thisthrough hubs.”


“Before the hub, local stations were unable to employ fulltime producers. One person would beboth a producer and a promotions manager. That person had limited equipment for producingcommercials and also had limited access to difference voices. In some markets, one announcerdid all of the voiceovers for commercials. Advertising became monotonous and was generally ofa poor quality. Since the introduction of the hubs, one person is employed purely to producecommercials at the hubs. That person has access to state of the art equipment and facilities, andalso has access to between 12 and 14 announcers, at any one time, to do the voiceovers for thecommercials. This means that the quality of the commercials has improved markedly and manydifferent voices may be heard doing the commercials.”


“Some small advertisers have complained because, in the past, they could telephone a local stationand have an advertisement read over the air within just a few hours. These days, becausecommercials are produced at the hub, there is at least a 24 hour turnaround and sometimes a littlebit more. But the quality of the commercials is now much better and, at the end of the day, it isunreasonable to require us to cater for advertisers who cannot think at least 24 hours in advance.If it was a community service announcement or a disaster or emergency alert, that would be adifferent story and we would still put it on the air immediately. But advertisers cannot reasonablycomplain because it takes more than a day to get their advertisement to air.”

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DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 7

Letter from Barry Sandry of Platinum Advertising to Ad News

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DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA




APPENDIX 8

Engineering Description of Hubs for Engineering Excellence Raward

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE RAWARD

The system was designed by Steve Adler, Tim English and Shane Davis. The main equipmentsuppliers were Computer Concepts Corporation, Comsyst and DSP Media.

DMG Engineering performed installation of all equipment with the exception of one privatecabling contractor and Comsyst for the satellite system.

The Hubs supplies two separate programs at any given time to 22 transmitters in Queensland and21 transmitters in NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Both Hubs deliver their programming and data via satellite. The satellite uplink systemincorporates physical space diversity to negate the effects of rain attenuation and equipmentfailure. T he main uplinks are at the Hub ends with fully redundant uplink systems at ChartersTowers in the North and at Bendigo in the South. This system is fully automatic and requires nointervention whatsoever should rain attenuation or equipment failures occur.

Digital audio storage and presentation is achieved using Computer Concepts “Maestro” system.DMG and Computer Concepts jointly developed the “Forward and Store” mechanism whichallows prerecorded material to be sent out to all receiving stations for synchronised replay at anygiven time. DMG and Computer Concepts also developed the “Events Server” which allows thetriggering of unlimited events at the receiving sites.

The news room system utilises the Computer Concepts “Newsroom” operating system. Thissystem allows for the “Forward and Store” of tailored news bulletins directly to the receiving sitesfor replay at news time.

These systems enable the immediate or lagged insertion of bulletins and other programs, asrequired. Items can be brought forward and broadcast immediately from the “Forward and Store”and items can also be inserted at any time whatsoever through the “Events Server”. Thesesystems enable the use of new technologies and automation, coupled at the same time withimmediacy and changes to programming whenever required. Nothing needs anything more thanthe flick of a switch.

Production is accomplished utilising the DSP production system. DSP and DMG jointly designedthe system to make all three production studios “networkable” to allow the interchange ofproduction material. The production studios were ergonomically designed to allow producers tomake commercials quickly and efficiently. The Hub production studio’s produce between 800and 1000 commercials and promos per week. All this material is transferred to each receiving sitevia the “Forward and Store” mechanism.

Traffic / Scheduling is based on the Computer Concepts VT traffic software. All traffic forQueensland is done from the Hub in Townsville. All traffic for NSW, Victoria and SouthAustralia is done from the Hub in Albury. The VT system has been integrated into the “Forwardand Store” mechanism. All logs are delivered to the receiving sites via this mechanism.Reconciliation is performed every two hours with the receiving stations making a short durationISDN connection. This method is very cost effective because there is no need for a permanentWide Area Network. These savings which result from there being no need for a permanent WideArea Network are savings in technology costs and not in labour costs.

There are three “On Air” studio’s, two “Voice Tracking” studios, three production studios, twonews studios and one news prep in each Hub. The whole system revolves around a digital audioswitch that was designed by Computer Concepts. The brand name for this switch is “Epicenter”.There is no analog audio in the hubs except for microphones and loud speakers. All audio ishandled in AES-EBU format. Any studio can select a source from anywhere in the Hub and playit. In the very near future, we will be connecting the Townsville Hub and the Albury Hubtogether so the any studio in any hub can select any audio source. ie: An on air studio inTownsville could select a production microphone in the Albury Hub etc. The system wasdesigned to be very modular in its connectivity. We can produce programs anywhere andsimultaneously broadcast them anywhere else through these systems. We can also produce andbroadcast news bulletins in the same way instantaneously.

Power redundancy was paramount in our thinking. Each Hub has twin redundant uninterruptablepower supplies that handle the entire load of the facility. There is an emergency power plant ateach site with the ability to “plug in” an external emergency power plant should the need arise.

Out of the three “On Air” studios, one is always spare. There is the space diverse satellite system,which has been described earlier. The “Epicentre” switcher is set up into two individual systems.Each system can supply both programming streams should one system fail.

Each receiving site has a complete “Maestro” system installed. Should any part of the Hubsystem fail, the receiving stations can go into a live or automated local mode thus keeping thestation on the air until repairs can be affected. By installing a complete “Maestro” System at each

receiving site also means that there are always two copies of the audio data at any one time. ie:One at the Hub and one at the receiving site.

Documents

DMG RADIO AUSTRALIA - Parliament of Australia · Metropolitan Business College, Sydney, Australia These colleges all provide integrated educational programs in the UK, USA, Australia,